Growing Up Together
by Gumdrop Boo - Ch4rms
Summary: A tale that shadows the sons and daughters that must grow up not only with dragons but with each other in the society that Hiccup has shaped as Chief of Berk - a society no viking has ever known before.
1. Prologue

**A/N: **Hello All! if you stumble to this I'd like to invite you to read all my other HTTYD stuff first, namely the '_Seasonal Series_' and '_Slivers and Slices_' as I treat these writings as a layer upon layer/continuation deal; things are referenced from earlier stories and if you want 100% in the loop, and a more satisfying reading expirience overall from this - that's the way to do it. All can be found on my profile page with descriptors and reading order. If you have read 'em all, or don't mind not knowing back-story, then away you go into this next installment!

* * *

This is Berk.

It's eight days east of acceptance and still a few degrees south of freezing to death. It's located solidly on the latitude of life-lessons.

Between the jutted rockforms of the sea could be found a once-miserable little island of rock. Steeped with hard-headedness and tradition like most Viking settlements, and filled with such Vikings ready to slay any intruding dragon s- however the village had gone through a rather remarkable transformation.

Dragons now flew freely through Berk skies, perched on the rooftops, intermingling with the humans that had ceased fighting them and taken to be their friends. The influence of Berk was now felt throughout the Barbaric Archipelago and now the island was a thriving place of interest, and had expanded in population as well as trade.

The village had been there for seven generations, and now a new generation was growing up within it, but they were a bit different—they had never known what it was to be afraid of dragons.

These children of Berk were the first to grow from infancy into a society fully accustomed to dragons of friendlier relations. Never did they have to hide inside homes like their parents and grandparents had while adults fought off the fire beasts in raids, never did they have to train to kill them but rather learned to train _them_ when of age.

And growing up in a society that had never had dragons as a constant positive before gave the children an edge over the adults, even the ones who were supposed to know everything about them. For there was more to discover in a whole childhood than a few short years after the time of peace.

This tale follows a few of these children as they grow - grow with dragons as well as each other. It's a story about growing up together in a new society after knowing nothing but the generations of old.


	2. Wood Gathering

The adults would say that the more their children bundled up during the winter, they better they could avoid frostbite.

Svenan the younger did exactly as his mother, Astrid the Agile, instructed to keep frostbite away. He begged for long sweaters starting autumn so that he could be wrapped and snug in time for winter. Astrid gave in to his pleas and attempted to knit them.

However it didn't seem to matter if Svenan planned ahead, wore three sweaters, a fur, two pairs of woolen socks under his thick boots or two different scraves at the _same time_, because Frostbite just couldn't be avoided. Not even in the winter when they said she could.  
The daughter of the master bone-carver was a rightful terror, terrible, as annoying as as a terrible terror seeking food—constantly buggering around him, asking questions, showing off her smarts by asking him 'did you know..?'

All the children knew she was only smart because her father was also the most knowlagabele Viking in Berk. She only copied him and what he said, it was the only way. There was no way she was smarter than Svenan. He was older and he wasn't a pest. Frostbite was the bane to Svenan's fun. Everyone else seemed they could avoid her by bundling up but poor Svenan, yet eight years old and even in seven layers and sweating in the middle of a frozen winter still could not avoid the miniature Vikingette once she caught sight of him.

Unfortunately, that cold morning she had, no thanks to his younger brother's cheerful waving.

Wood-gathering could either be a tedious or thrilling endeavor. It all depended who else went with you. For Svenan it was the latter if Hailstrom, son of the ship-builder was around, they would race and see how many sticks each could pick up in a certain amount of time. Sometimes they might get distracted and try building a small stick shelter and pretend they were hunting for animals. In the winter, the children sent on wood-gathering chores knew it was in their best interest to gather as much as possible, especially before their faces turned numb from the cold.

That winter Svenan the younger could only walk forward on the crisp snow and let out moans of discontent that only manifested themselves into white vapor on the frigid air. He was sent off with his younger brother Stoick to gather wood. It was alright, because Icky could lend a hand but the worst of his problems was that Frostbite was also sent to do the same task for her household. Now she was two steps behind him; she couldn't be avoided.

"How many sticks ya got Svenan?"

She pulled up next to him and was immediately rendered the most annoying thing in the seven worlds.

He glanced down to see Icky counting the bunch in his arms, "Eleventeen!"

"That's not a real number Icky," Svenan corrected. He wondered why the little guy even tried.

"Yuh huh!"

"No it's _not_."

"But I counted!"

Svenan rolled his eyes. Frostbite let out an amused giggle.

It was snowing too. The fall consisted of the big, fluffy types of snowflakes that would cake onto their hair and eyelashes—languidly floating downward and adding to the white blanketed landscape.

"Didja know that all snowflakes have six ends and none are the same looking?"

He should have kept on ignoring her but her claim was stupid, there were so many snow flakes! Year after year they fell and piled into the landscape and she claimed none of them were the same? Did she think the Gods had time to make more than a kazillitron designs for something no one ever paid close attention to?

"Yeah right! How would you know? I bet your Dad told you that as a bedtime story."

"Nuh uh!" She protested and stumbled after him through the snow, "I figured it out myself! I looked really close at the ones that fell on my covering. They looked different from each other. People don't look the same, so why do snowflakes have to?"

"There are a lot more snowflakes."

"But they are tiny, they don't take up all the space people does."

He didn't even know how to respond to that logic so he went back to ignoring her, though couldn't help but to examine a big fluffy snowflake that had landed on his arm to see if it was any different than the next.

"I like snowflakes, I catch them on my licker!" Icky prompted her and tilted his head back, catching a big one on his tongue.  
She gave a giddy laugh and joined him. Svenan frowned at their uselessness because now he was the only one finding wood.

He spotted a fallen branch under a drift and pulled it out, setting it on top of Icky's pile. Their mother would chop bigger wood, all their pieces went to tinder and kindling. No one ever wanted their fire to die out, especially during the winter.

Frostbite must have been thinking of ways to annoy him while she chomped at the bits of snow flying around, but he wasn't worried about it. All he liked was that she had stopped talking.

He saw another branch and crunched through the snow to get to it but he was pulled backwards, and all his wood tumbled to the ground. He flusterdly sat up, hating how the coldness melted into his breeches and saw the little terror take the branch.

She never ceased to push him; in the spring he was pushed into the mud, in the summer he was pushed into the water puddles, in the autumn he was pushed into the piles of leaves and now it as winter and he met with a snowdrift. Not only was she a pest but a mean one at that.

"Why did you do that?" He roared.

"I saw it first."

"No you didn't!"

"Yuh huh!"

"You were eating snowflakes, you didn't see a thing!"

"Now I see a pouty boy in the snow," she stuck out her tongue, not even sorry for her behavior. He hoped it would freeze off right there.

Her eyes were bright and mischevious, her face was red with the cold. Svenan wanted to punch her a good one but knew if he did she would cry and tell her father and then he would tell the chief and then his dad would yell at him for fighting, not to mention fighting a girl younger than him by two years. He stood and gave his best look of loathing.

"Come on Icky, let's go somewhere else to find sticks," he brushed the snow off his breeches and picked up the bits of his pile before Frostbite could steal those too, and get out of wood-gathering all together. "You can't come with us!"

"Icky! You should come help me," Frostbite smiled at the little boy which caused him to give an unsure look between them.

"No way! Icky you're coming with me!"

"You're brother is mean, look at him yellin' and telling people what to do," she pointed and quivered her pouted lip for effect.

Icky began to inch away from Svenan, indicating he had chosen a side, "Don't you dare! I'm telling Mom!"

"She's right! You are full of bossy!"

Icky gave a disapproving frown and scampered off after Frostbite to help her gather wood instead.

Svenan all but stomped around in the snow, upturning it in his frustration.

He picked up what wood he had and went back to his home instead.

He shoved the front door open and he saw his father's dragon lift an ear at the noise, but otherwise kept snoozing in the warmest spot of the main room. Dragons didn't like the cold.

He stomped the snow off his boots which did cause Toothless to turn and open a sleepy eye. Svenan only glared accusingly and seethed, "Why couldn't you have eaten her?"

Toothless on gave a '_Gruurrr' _in response as if to say it wasn't his problem.

"Useless dragon," Svenan grumbled, "What good are you if you don't eat pesky girls?"

The Night Fury straight up ignored him that time and stuffed his head into his paws and took a deep contented breath.

Svenan wished _he_ could just nap all winter and be warm. Toothless should have realized that without Svenan going out and fetching all the kindling there would be _no_ warm fire for the dragon to sleep in front of. Then he would have to go where all the other dragons went for winter. Somewhere on an island his father had said though Svenan had never been there before and wanted to go someday.

He dropped his pile next to the hearth, it wasn't much because Icky had taken off with half of it and probably would let Frostbite have it and more.

Icky was too nice, he'd let all those mean kids walk over him if Svenan didn't step in once and awhile to tell them to shove off. So it made him mad that Icky would choose someone else to go off wood-gathering with when it was he, the older brother that was always looking out for him.

"Svenan?" he heard his mother call before she entered the room, "You're back? Where's your brother?"

"Oh I don't know, he wandered off with Frostbite Ingerman. He totally ditched me mom!"

She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, thankfully disapproving of the decision on her youngest's part. But Icky wasn't the boy she was displeased with, "You let him go off by himself? What were you thinking? Go back out there and get him! He'll catch his death!"

"But mom!"

"Go, I have enough to do, and taking care of your sick brother isn't something I want to add to my list. Go fetch him back now!"

Svenan gave a subtle groan—not loud enough for her to hear and re-entered the snowy wonderland of Berk. He looked up at the gray sky and knew this was the type of snow that would bury them for a week if left on too long. He'd gotten snowed in before with his family, at least once a year. The longest seemed for a month but really was only two days provided Toothless blew a hole of fire through the build up. Since Toothless was the only big dragon left around during the season, their family had that advantage.

He followed his tracks back to the woods and called his brother's name.

"ICKY!"

The only sounds were of the creaky and bare iced branches or that eerie quiet during a woodland snowfall which only made one realize how much colder they actually were. He shivered and crossed his arms over his chest.

"ICKY!"

How come _he_ had to fetch him? What was his mom doing that was so important? What about his dad? He sighed, knowing his dad couldn't, not unless it was an emergency. His dad was Chief and he had been told numerous times how much responsibility as on the Chief's shoulders. But at least his dad was warm right now, no doubt helping catch up on work in the forge.

"Icky!" he called again, hating that sharp coldness entering his lungs. Didn't his mom think that he could get sick too? Maybe she thought since he was older and Icky was younger and scrawnier that Icky could get it easier. He had heard about the winter sickness, it scared him. He didn't ever say what he was scared of out loud but he could say that the winter sickness was the scariest thing ever.

He gave a cough after that and took to a panic. Forgetting his task, he ran back to his home, fearing it was an indication he was getting it.

He burst through the door heaving in sharp breaths with wide eyes, "Mom! Mom! I have the winter sickness!"

Astrid appeared immediately and put a hand to his forehead, then the back of it to his cheek. She gave a breath and unwrapped him from one of his scarves, "No honeyoats, you are fine."

"But I coughed!"

"Everyone has a tickle in their throat come winter, it's the dryness. Here I have some warm goats milk with honey for you," she had a mug ready in her hand and gave it to him. He happily sipped but remembered the task at hand.

"But what about Icky?"

"He came back."

Svenan tugged off his second scarf and glowered before marching into the adjoined eating area where Icky and Odin forbid, _Frostbite_ were sitting and drinking their share of warm beverage. How could his Mom let her in the house? He had forbid it ever since he was four years old and she had made him play her stupid _tea party_ game.

No Frostbite allowed in their home. Ever.

"What are you doing here!" he blurted and didn't think it rude at all to question it. He also slammed his mug down on the table for good measure.

"I walked your brother home, he was nice to gather wood for me. Your mommy gave us warm honey-milk!"

"I like honey!" Icky smiled and licked his sticky lips.

"Did Mom yell at you for leaving?" Svenan asked his brother. He hoped so, let it be a lesson Icky shouldn't wander off, especially with blonde trolls.

"No, mommy said I was good for helping."

Svenan grumbled under breath before he broke at the unfairness of it. He got yelled at and Icky got a pat on the back? This was all Frostbite's fault.

"Get out! Get out now!" he demanded of her becoming hysterically annoyed.

"Svenan Hiccup Haddock!" he heard his mother snap from behind him; he had forgotten she was nearby, "Say you're sorry!"

"NO!"

"Svenan!"

"MOM!"

"_Sven."_ she uttered with a low voice and she never called him 'Sven', not really ever unless he was in deep trouble. He was being disrespectful but how could she have let that blonde terror in their home? Offered her sweet milk even?

Frostbite just sat there gloating silently because he had to tell her he was sorry.

He hated her so much.

He said it quickly, a blurt of a slur sounding like more like '_Imsury_' and dashed away before Astrid could stop him and make him do it the right way. He ran all the way up the stairs and to his room. Toothless, even his lethargic wintry phase took to chasing after him, always seeming to enjoy the tag and run game the Haddock sons provided but Svenan shut the door and latched it. He heard a _thump_ against it shortly after.

"WHY couldn't you have just EATEN her!"

He turned angrily and tugged off all his useless bundling because really, in the end no matter how much layers he wore, Frostbite would always get to him.


	3. Water Buckets

It wasn't easy carrying two buckets of water at once, especially for an eight year old.

Brigid frowned and concentrated forward, lifting her arms at the same time. The force jilted the bucket and the handle wobbled, causing some of the water to spill.

Carrying two buckets of water at once was a trying task indeed for anyone her age but she was determined to deliver that spring water back to her grandfather's lodge.

She would have made her brother, Curran help but knew he wasn't strong enough yet to haul a bucket from the spring back into the village without spilling all of it.

And having Finola carry anything was out of the question. Brig's little sister could walk but seemed to be growing up on the more delicate side.

Brig was told to take them both with her despite their uselessness.

Grandfather Spitelout told them that the air was good for them.

For the thousandth time since the early summer before she wished her father would return. It had almost been a year and Brig was worried.

Snotlout the Steadfast was her father and the high commander and cousin to the chief, but he was sent on an important diplomatic errand to her mother's land of Eire. She promised to look after her siblings and he promised he would return and she would be furious if he didn't keep that promise. He could have helped. Her Grandfather was busy with other matters or else would have helped too.

Maybe her insistence that she _could_ do it was her downfall.

She set the one bucket to the ground and tried to work out how she would complete the chore.

"Cur!"

He stopped dawdling and paid attention, seeming to have been deep into listening to something far off, some nose or sound; he was always doing that.

"Get Fireworm."

"I donno where she is," he responded in a mumble.

It was a long shot but she could at least try to get her father's dragon to help, the Nightmare was ten times the size of a person and there was no question she couldn't lift a simple bucket of water. However Fireworm was a difficult beast to command if one wasn't Snotlout.

"Use your music pipe, dragons are always coming around when you play it."

It was true.

Cur didn't like to play it outside because he would get surrounded by what seemed every dragon on the isle.

"But you only want Fireworm, not _every_ dragon ever!" he exclaimed.

"Just do it, Cur!"

"Alright, alright," he acquiesced and pulled his pipe from the belt at his waist where he kept it always. He blew a sharp note and began to run forward before any dragon could block his way.

Brigid also had to keep an eye on her little sister, who was so quiet sometimes people forgot she was there.

"Fin! Don't wander," Brig commanded. Fin gave her a look before pointing to her mouth. She was thirsty. Brig had become fluent in picking up Fin's non-verbal gestures. She knew her sister could say words but for some reason or another Fin just rarely ever spoke anything.

Brig saw she was thirsty, and they were still close to the springs; they said it was safe to drink from the mouth of the spring, so Brig let down her buckets and took a hold of Fin's hand to lead her to where she could get a drink. Anything further down the spring might have had mud or grass or bugs.

Brig splashed her hands into the cold water and cupped up some of it and held it to her sister, "Drink," the spring water was freezing, "Faster!"

It was rather wet and messy, what Fin didn't drink spilled onto the front of her dress and only more so when she indicated she wanted a second drink. After the second one Brig was done with it. Even if Fin did want more.

A shadow fell over them and they looked up to see their father's enormous dragon above. Cur was hanging by his vest from her mouth, curled up and afraid of the height. It looked like Fireworm was in the ornery sort of mood.

"Fireworm put him down!" Brig commanded.

Fireworm seemed at odds with Brig most days, it was just the way the dragon was—only loyal to the father. To everyone else she was rude or went halfway with commands because just like Brig, Fireworm did not like being bossed around.

The Nightmare opened her mouth and let him fall. It was only a few feet but he screamed and Brig shouted mostly in disdain at the haughty beast. She made her best attempt to catch him but instead broke his fall when he landed on her. Both Jorgenson children were sprawled on the ground.

They heard Fireworm's amused growly chortles.

Brig glowered and rolled Cur off of her, stood, and dusted her skirts, "If you're done being a troll, help carry the water," She pointed to her buckets.

The Nightmare's slitted eyes followed and she seemed to understand what Brig was asking. Her long neck slid over and she nosed the handle until it was upright and bit it.

Brig felt some relief at finally getting Fireworm to follow directions, that was until the selfish creature tilted her head back and drank the bucket's contents.

"NO! Fireworm you ugly lizard!" she let her rage fly and jumped upwards trying to gain the bucket back to her custody. "You're such a mean thing!"

Fireworm dropped the bucket; it hit Brig in the head. The Nightmare then opened her wings and began to take flight, not helping at all. Why had she even come? To have a good laugh at Brig no doubt.

"I hope you fall into the sea! If father was here you would help! You miserable beast!" Brig lifted her skirts and chased after the Dragon ten times her size, but it was like a bug chasing a hawk. She threw every word she knew she wasn't supposed to say at that wretched dragon and by the time Fireworm was in the air and high above, Brig had stopped running and was so angry her face was flushed and she had a horrible sinking in her chest.

All she tried to do was be responsible.

She had to. Who else would make sure Curran washed up for meals and that Fin would would be understood?

"Guard that bucket!" a new plan formulated in her head and she indicated toward the bucket that was still full of water. Cur nodded obediently. "And make sure Fin doesn't wander."

She grabbed up the empty bucket and went to the spring for yet the third time to refill it.

She had told Grandfather Spitelout she could get the water, and she _would_.

One bucket was easier to haul, and she managed fine to fill it and lug I back to where her siblings were.

"Where's Fin?" she asked, seeing her brother was alone.

"She wandered off! I can't guard a bucket _and_ chase her. I _told_ her to stop!"

"Well now you have to guard both buckets 'cause I have to go find her!"

He gave a little huff, but she knew he wouldn't argue; he was afraid she'd punch him the arm and she could slug a good one.

She began to run in the direction Cur had pointed, inwardly amazed her small sister could get so far in such a short time. She didn't bother calling Fin's name because she knew Fin wouldn't answer.

But there the little pixie was, on the pasture they sometimes used for playing bashyball. Though it was currently home to a flock of sheep.

She wasn't alone though, a few of the village boys were playing with the sheep.

"Hiya Brig!" a freckled child greeted at seeing her approach.

Icky and Fin were sitting in the grass and petting a lamb.

Svenan the younger and his friend Hailstrom were chasing the sheep making roaring sounds. They were probably pretending they were dragons.

"Shouldn't you be down at the docks?" she asked, knowing they were apprenticed to the ship-builder. She didn't like seeing them hassling the sheep like that.

"Nah, not today. They need more wood to build ships so they are out in the forests this week," Svenan the Younger halted his terrorizing of the sheep to answer.

She only pressed her lips together and then turned an angry eye on Fin.

"Finola! I told you not to wander!" she chided using her sister's full name then swept her up to a stand.

She saw Fin was not guilty or sorry at all for wasting her time. Her sister only sunk her fingers into the lambs woolly hide.

"We were petting the baby sheep!" Icky said, perhaps a statement of protest.

"Well I have to get her and my buckets of water back to our Grandfather's, so no more petting!" she yanked Fin up by her hand and began to leave them.

"Whoa you're lifting TWO buckets of water at once?" Icky's eyes widened and he hopped up from his sitting place in the grass.

"Yeah so what?"

The other boys must have heard because they stopped chasing the sheep and turned their attention towards her.

"No way! You can't carry two buckets of water at once!"

"I can too!"

"Nuh uh, you're a girl," Svenan dared remark. If his mother heard him talk like that his ear would have been twisted.

She narrowed her eyes, completely infuriated at their teases. They only thought so because _they_ couldn't do it.

"I can too. Go back to chasing your sheep!"

"You should prove it, you should show us," Svenan suggested.

"Okay! I will!" Brig accepted their challenge. She made sure to keep a hold of Finola's hand as she led them back to where she left the buckets and her brother.

Cur was laying on the ground in an exasperated manner when she found him. He was in the middle of humming a song—one he probably made up because she didn't recognize it.

"Cur, what are you doing?" She asked standing over him.

"Guarding the buckets."

"Fat lot of guarding this is, anyone could walk up and take them."

He only frowned and lifted up on his elbows, "Who would take our water anyway?"

"Water bandits!" Icky answered, and with real fear in his voice; he too had followed to see if Brig really could lift and carry two buckets of water at once.

She and the older boys rolled their eyes at him.

"Okay so show us!" Hailstrom demanded.

"Yeah!" Svenan prompted.

"Take Fin's hand so she doesn't wander off," Brig demanded of Cur.

_Okay I can do this_, Brig told herself, _I can show them_.

She lifted up the handles and in turn lifted up the buckets and every muscle in her arms were burning in strain trying to lift those suckers. They came off the ground a little bit and she stepped forward, her arms were threatening to drop outright, and began shaking.

Why did she even need to carry two at once? It would make for less walking but the fact was she could carry _one_ and be successful. Maybe she should have just made Cur guard the bucket while she took one back to their grandfather's.

After two more steps she had to drop one bucket involuntarily and it spilled into the ground.

"See, we told you," Svenan only made her angrier by saying it, especially in a way that made him sound superior, "Come on Icky."

She was mostly angry at herself for embarrassing herself like that. She ended up kicking the bucket; it turned and rolled down the incline. Her face was heated, it always did that when she got mad. She remembered her mother's face to do that when she got angry too—it got really red. Her mother had carried two buckets of water at the same time, was it something that could only be done once you were grown up?

"Don't be mad Brig," she heard Cur try to say but he wasn't nearly as good as her at commanding things and she just stormed past him to retrieve her bucket.

Before she could grab it though, another pair of hands did.

"You obviously need help," she found Hailstrom saying and it only added insult to injury. She glowered; she thought he had left with Svenan to go back to terrorizing sheep because that was just _so_ productive.

"_I do not," _She denied vehemently.

He seemed to ignore her all together as he walked back toward the spring.

"I can do it myself!" she charged after him, "What do you think you are doing?"

"Refilling this bucket. You can carry the other one."

She gnashed her teeth together at the whole insinuation that she was too weak to carry the buckets by herself. She thought she was strong.

She grabbed up the opposite bucket as they walked back, "Come on Cur, keep ahold of Fin's hand."

Her blood was boiling the whole time. When Hailstrom set down the bucket at the front door and asked her '_Aren't you gonna thank me_?', that was the point her boil overheated.

"No, because you think just 'cause I'm a girl I can't carry my own buckets of water."

"No, I think no one your age can carry two buckets of water at once. Just 'cause you're a girl has nothing to do with it."

Hailstrom was only Svenan's age, maybe a few months older.

"Why did you help me then?"

"Father always says to help others in he clan, that way Odin looks favorably upon you."

Her father never told her that. She wondered if it were true or if Hailstrom was just makin' stuff up. He was a son of the Skørnes—a family with a reputation for swindling. She didn't know what 'swindling' entailed but she'd heard more than one person claim so and all times with a tone of disapproval.

"Okay well thanks then, I _guess_."

"Sure," he shrugged and took leave back in the direction of the pasture.

She had to wonder if he had just 'swindled' her but she didn't feel any different if not a little angry and exasperated.

"Grandfather we're home!" she called just in case he had returned before them. The Terrible Terror that kept board with them fluttered down from the lodge's rafter and sniffed around Fin, which meant he was home but probably carving some wood or resting or sharpening spearheads.

"Open the water barrel." she demanded of her brother. He scampered ahead, climbing on top of a crate to reach the lid of the barrel that held the lodge's water. It was a quarter empty, and Brig tried planning ahead and refilling it before it got half-way empty which only led to more buckets of water to refill it. Her mother had always done it that way.

She poured in one bucket and the other.

Cur had begun to entertain Fin with a toy—one of the ragga-dolls Brig had made a few years ago that her mother had helped her with.

She hated doing that—thinking about her mother.

And how she wasn't coming back.

Her heart seemed to always crash into her tummy when that happened.

With her siblings distracted she emerged from her grandfather's lodge and walked through the village until she stood in front of her own home. She hadn't stepped inside for many months and it was probably dusty. They were too young to live by themselves while Snotlout was away, but Grandfather Spitelout could look after them in his own lodge. He was a stern type of man, serious and laughed at grown-up humors she didn't understand. Cur would tell a joke she found pretty clever for a six-year-old and he would just nod; his friend Ack would tell a joke and their grandfather would laugh loudly. Grown ups seemed to be a part of a whole another world—at least in their world two buckets of water could be carried at once.

She was still bitter about that.

She thought she heard some commotion, carried on the winds upward from the bay but did not investigate because she wasn't that curious and the docks smelled fishy. She had done her chores and the Widow Thorston didn't require her presence on Tiwesdæg to help with sewing garments so she didn't know what to do with this sudden spot of free time.

She wanted to play, she needed to play more but her time was always seeming filled. Frostbite would always be up for a game of the jump rope though Frostbite threw a fit if she didn't play her way. Brig had her own rope she got leftover from the docks when her Grandfather had taken her and her siblings along to see the longboats and buy fish. Her father was a good fisher, but he hadn't done it in awhile...she couldn't remember the last time he had gone fishing. She didn't like fish very much.

She ended up front of her doorway, sitting there with her knees tucked up and couldn't help but to fall into remembering how things used to be not so long ago. She saw a piece of a stick in reaching distance and scratched some lines in the dirt. It had rained two days before so the ground was kind of a hard mud; those who were heavier would sink faster into the non-grassy areas.

Her family's home was right near an edge of the high rock, it had a good view of the ocean. It was a good home. One of the best in her opinion—she wanted to live in it again.

A few more lines and she threw down the stick and looked at her ground scribbles, but had to wipe away her messy curls that had blown into her face to see it.

The scribbles looked like stick people. Three little ones, two big ones and reminded her of the weird art thing she had seen one time in the chief's lodge, on the main room's wall of all places.

She missed her home.

She missed her mother.

She missed her father.

"Don't tell me you have been waiting here for me this whole time."

It was said accompanied by a loud thud that upturned the mud in front of her. Distinctive of the very beast she had spatted with not an hour before.

She jerked her gaze up immediately at hearing that, the owner dismounted and she searched over the figure with wide-eyes.

He looked tired, weary of travel with a slight gauntness in his cheeks but through it she could tell a smile was rising.

"Dad!" she shouted and instinctively propelled forward so fast that she didn't think she had ever touched the ground. She was being lifted and squeezed with all the might that the high commander possessed. She buried her face into his shoulder and felt her eyes become weepy.

It was one of the three times Brigid Jorgenson would ever recall crying—that day her father returned.

The other time before had been when her mother had died. The third time would be when she was a young woman and furiously cursing the very man embracing her to Helheim.

She clasped her arms around his neck even tighter, almost unbelieving that he was finally home. Fireworm must have found him first through her superior senses upon his return to explain him riding up on her, and now she acted like an conveniently obedient fire beast now that he was returned.

"I missed you!"

She could hear the deep vibration of his voice and understand even with one of her ears crushed against him, "I missed you, more than you can know."

He let her down and studied her and she could have sworn he looked devastated.

"Aren't you happy to see me?"

The look lifted immediately as if he didn't realize he'd even had it.

"Of course I am! Where is your brother and sister?"

"At Grandfather's, playing, come on!" she felt a smile tear across her cheeks as she grabbed his hand—it fully engulfed hers.

She could just picture Cur's smile upon seeing their father and maybe even Fin would talk! She could feel a giddiness rising at anticipating her siblings' reactions at seeing him again.

He didn't follow though; he stayed firm in his spot, "You fetch them and bring them home. I have to go speak with the chief."

She felt her smile dissipate back to a frown; he always seemed to choose his duties over them, "But you haven't seen them for a long time!"

It wasn't fair that she got to be the only one to see him—she knew they missed him just as much as she did.

"I will see them soon enough," he assured and kneeled to her level while holding her face, trying to ease her frown away as if he couldn't bear it, "I have to report to Hiccup the Useful right now but I'm proud of you Brig. You handled yourself and kept watch on the others while I was away—you kept your promise."

Then he hugged her again, squashing her so close that her frustration melted back into the happiness that she couldn't deny because he had kept his promise too.

He had returned.

They could all be together again.

* * *

**A/N:** Well, there's s'more Jorgenson-kid-action for you :3 And yay! Snotlout returned home okay :D He has no idea about Alvin...I just realized. Well I'm sure Hiccup can fill him in...and Snotlout probably has news for Hiccup too...


	4. Bashy Ball

"Frostbiiiiite!"

The sever-year old being addressed cringed, not knowing what she did this time to cause her mother's displeasure.

They were near the clay walls, on the other side of the island. Usually her mother wouldn't let either her or her brother come along and made her father keep watch of them—which was alright—Frostbite liked it in the shop stall where her father carved and worked on his craft, but her father had decreed he needed no distractions; Fishlegs had some big projects with orders to fill and needed a perfect, _quiet _working environment. She could tell her mother wasn't pleased in bringing them all the way over there but they couldn't be left at home.

She didn't know why her auntie couldn't watch them again, her cousins and aunt lived at the same home but she remembered her aunt using a word called '_overwhelming_' after the last time her father and mother had stuff to do and they were all left alone together under their aunt's supervision. She remembered accidentally spilling a jar of honey that Bludgeonstick, her younger cousin wandered through and tracked across the floorboards while her other cousin, Briarprick was pulling Splint's hair because he took her doll.

Earlier, Frostbite had been throwing clumps of clay at her little brother—they bounced off of him but he whined too much. Their mother finally snapped at them to separate so Frostbite climbed the hill above and entertained herself by picking some wild flowers.

She was currently sitting in the tall grass and weaving the stalks so they made a flower crown. Her father had taught her how that year and she thought they looked pretty so tried it herself.

"What mama?"

"What in Odin's name are you doing?"

Her mother had a block clay tied with thin rope to carry back and work with. Her mama made pots and dishes out of it. Frostbite's favorite part was when Snipe the Terrible Terror came out from hiding and fired them—just because he always was scarce and she wanted to hold him. Frostbite's favorite kind of dragon were Terrible Terrors. Immediately after would be a game of cat-and-mouse as Frostbite tried to catch him before he skittered away. Her mother usually yelled at her for _that_ too.

"Making flowery crowns," she answered.

Her mother gave a look of disgust.

"What's wrong with flowers?" she asked in defense. They were pretty! Frostbite loved pretty things. She didn't think there were enough pretty things on the island.

"Flowers are dub," Splint commented as he was picking his nose.

"_You're _dumb!"

"Don't you think you would have more fun climbing trees or skipping rocks in the water?" Her mother instead asked with an encouraging tone.

"No."

And then her mother did it again, that subtle disapproving, exasperated roll of her eyes. "Come on, we're done here."

She gave a shrill whistle and soon enough her two-headed fire beast appeared behind her from the sky. They had rode the Zippleback there and it was by the Zippleback they would return.

Her mother lifted the loop of rope upward and left head secured it in it's mouth. She then lifted Splint onto the right neck and motioned Frostbite to hurry up.

"But I'm not done with my crown!"

"You can make more some other time!"

"But they don't have these flowers near at the village!" she indicated to some red-petaled ones she had been quite happy to find up that hill.

"Just get your rear in gear, I do not have time for this."

Frostbite frowned and pouted out of habit, crossing her arms stubbornly.

Her mother threw her arms up as well as a curse that lingered somewhere above their heads. She then swiped up a bunch of the red flowers from the ground and motioned yet again, "We'll bring some with us then—now can we leave?"

Frostbite smiled, because it was acceptable to her. She scrambled upward and approached the neck. Her mother mounted behind Splint to make sure he didn't fall off and Frost climbed up behind her mother and held her waist. The Zippleback would only fly her and her brother if Ruffnut or their Uncle Tuffnut was also riding. They all had to share a neck because it must have balanced weight the block of clay in the others' mouth.

Another whistle from her mother prompted the dragon to take flight. It had done this activity long enough to know their next destination was behind the Ingerman lodge where her mother sliced the block into slabs and kept them in a moist pit.

"Mama, can I have my flowers now?"

"Sure," her mother held them out, but the wind from flying had blown a lot of the petals off. Frostbite frowned in disappointment. They were useless and her crown wouldn't be finished. She placed it on her head anyway.

"Do flowers taste good?" Splint wondered as he picked up a fallen red petal and stuffed it in his mouth. He immediately spit it out with a disgusted shout and continued spitting the taste out, '_blech'_-ing and _ich-_ing and making a general mess of himself.

"You're so stupid," she reminded him, figuring he deserved that for asking and not waiting for her to say that flowers didn't taste good.

"Mama, can I go play?"

"Fine, but take your brother with you," Her mother insisted. Her sleeves were already rolled up ready to work. Frost bit liked making stuff out of the clay too. Sometimes her mother let her but nothing she ever made looked as good as what her mothers earthenware did.

Frostbite didn't want to look after her brother; he was too slow and whined when she walked too fast. He wouldn't even play her games right! Instead she opened up the door that led to the back of the her home and looked to see if her auntie was around. Maybe she could watch Splint.

"Frost!"

She was taken by surprise at her younger cousin who was hiding under a table and had grabbed her boot. It was Briarprick.

"What?"

"Hide!"

"Why?"

"Yahh, gotcha!" Briarprick's twin charged in and basically punched Frost in the arm.

"OW! You maggot!" She hauled back and returned the favor.

Bludgeonstick fell back and started whining. Boys were so whiny.

"We played hide n' seek," Briar explained and crawled out from under the table. She gave a kick to her brother for good measure. He curled into a ball and gave a slight whimper after threatening to kill her.

"Well I wasn't playing!"

Her aunt then entered the room carrying a bundle of fresh vegetables from their garden, "Are you back then from clay gathering?"

"Yeah," Frostbite smiled and put on her most polite voice, "I was going to go play—can't Splint stay here?"

Her aunt Harkin set out a bunch of parsnips and bean pods across the table and got a thoughtful look, "Actually can you take your cousins with you? They need to run around for awhile."

That was _not_ what Frostbite wanted to do.

"But _I _can't look after them all. I'm only seven and they might get into a bad fight," she indicated to her cousins because it wasn't unheard of. They were already four and ready to beat the innards out of one another at any given moment. Bludgeonstick was already grabbing for his sister's braid to yank her a good one.

"Why don't you get a bunch of kids together and play bashy ball? It's a nice day outside. They don't last for very long before the summer rains."

She could protest but knew it was true. There was a time in the summer where it would rain for a few weeks; everything got wet and soggy and Frostbite didn't like it. She knew and had learned through trial and error and observing other kids that obeying went a long way with adults, and she needed to be on Harkin's good side ever should she need to convince her aunt to watch her brother in the future.

"Thanks sweetie," Harkin smiled. She looked tired but it was only midday at most. Frost didn't understand how adults could look so sleepy all the time. Maybe it was an older-person thing.

So now Frostbite was burdened with not only her dumb brother but her violent twin cousins as well. That was a lot to ask a seven year old to keep watch on such hooligans.

However, the mention of bashy ball did present an advantage. There was only two bashy balls she knew of, the older kids had one—the children possessed the other and and whoever's team won the last game had keep of it. The person who had won last time was Svenan. Svenan's team always won.

This was the perfect excuse for her to go to his place and see him.

Also one of her favorite things to do was ask if Icky, Svenan's younger brother, wanted to play because he never said _no_ to it. He was such an agreeable child and she appreciated it; he would play whatever game she wanted, go along with any idea she had and even liked them all too! She knocked on the door to see if his mother was there to tell her where they were.

"Can Icky play?" she asked as soon as the door opened but it was Svenan instead of his mother.

"No!"

He almost closed the door on her but a big black creature nearly trampled over her in a hasty exit. It was Toothless, the Night Fury and had a rug slung over his back. Then she heard a adamant, "Yeah I can! I can play! I can play!" and Icky pushed Svenan before evading his arm in the way between him and the outside.

"Hiya Frostbite! Watcha wanna play?"

"Icky can't play he is supposed to beat the dust out of our rugs."

"I was almost done!" he pointed in the direction that Toothless had run in.

She found it amusing when the brothers fought. She could relate though because she got into quite a few arguments with her dumb brother. Though she always won those.

"Actually we want to play bashy ball," she stated and gestured behind her where her brother was staring vacantly and her cousins were already squabbling again, pushing each other back and forth.

"Stop fighting!" Icky demanded, disturbed attheir violence, but the twins didn't even bat an eyelid.

"You can't just tell them, you have to make them," Frostbite instructed, reaching into the fray and smacking whichever one across the face, and like the Zippleback, it had to be fair. The initial slap caught on Briar's cheek and she sniffled with a glare. Bludge was amused until he received the same treatment.

"If you two don't cut it out I'll tell your dad."

Her Uncle Tuffnut would set them straight. They were always on best behavior when they saw him. They rubbed at their cheeks, full of scowling but otherwise ceased fighting.

"But yes, bashy ball. Can we have the ball please Svenan?" she wore her most convincing smile she made at adults to get her way though it never worked on him.

"Nuh-uh, _you're_ not playing bashy ball without me!" he wouldn't be de-throned as highest scorer. Svenan never missed a game, and she knew he wouldn't let her play without him.

"Mo-om! We're gonna go play now!" Svenan, with the ball under arm, yelled so his voice carried to the back of the home. He hurried Icky along and all children skedaddled before Astrid could raise protest or ask what had happened to the rug she had weaved.

They picked up a few more of the village children on their way to the sheep pasture which served as best space for the game. Frostbite proclaimed herself leader of the first team and since no one wanted to hear her whine, which she would if she did not get her way, they did not protest. Svenan insisted he was the leader of the second team—he always was because he was the eldest son of the chief.

Since she was leader of the first team, she got to pick first, "Hailstrom."

Frostbite picked Hailstrom, just because he could run the second-fastest behind Svenan and Svenan threw her a dirty look. He always chose his best friend and she had stolen him for her team.

"Brig."

It was her turn to scowl at him for stealing players because Brig was the better thrower.

"Icky."

"Bludgeonstick."

"Briarprick."

"Cur."

"Buzzkill."

They went on and on until one child playing was left.

Splint was the last. The slowest and roundest. Her own brother was last pick. She shook her head in disappointment or embarrassment for him as Svenan was forced to claim him for his team. She didn't pick her team out of pity, she wanted to win and put a stop to Svenan's undefeated record.

They commenced play throwing the wrapped material ball around, out of the other teams reach until the end of the field. The teens in the village put the 'bash' in 'bashy ball', often tackling the player with the ball before they could throw it. The children weren't as rough. Bludgeonstick was the most dangerous because he piled headfirst into the other team players, not caring about his own bruisings.

It wasn't long until their noise had attracted the attentions of some curious dragons. A Nadderhead and a blazing copper-scaled Zippleback. The Nadder eyed the ball until it decided to try and taste it, it leaped and landed in the center of the game causing a few children to yell in surprise. With a swift jerk of its head, it grabbed the ball out of Brig's hands and engulfed it with it's mouth.

The Zippleback was more interested in the running children, often bumping them on the head with it's nose as if to tag them.

"Stop it, stop it!" laughed Cur as the fire beast kept nosing him.

"Give the ball back!" Brig demanded pointing right at the Nadder.

It snackled in stubbornness.

Frostbite ran up, to them since the game was at a halt, "I know what to do! My auntie's Nadder likes grabbing stuff with her mouth." She then stood in front of the big snout and began feeling for the ticklish spot that she saw her aunt use to take back whatever Cringe had stolen.

The thieving dragon hissled as Frost tickled her neck scales lightly and the ball lolled out of it's mouth.

"Ewww," Brig picked it up. It was covered in dragon-spit and dirt.

Briarprick yanked it from her almost immediately, unbothered by the grime and ran towards the end of the pasture to get a point. Bludgeonstick collided with her, sending them flipping stomaches to back through the grass and the ball was in neither team's possession as it rolled away.

Where Svenan grabbed it.

Svenan threw the ball to Splint as a last resort since everyone else was being blocked or distracted. The rotund kid reached up and fumbled with the ball a bit before it dropped. He was only five years old, and he had watched plenty of games to know how to play—but he just didn't have the skill.

"Splint, you useless piglet! Can't you at least catch a ball!" Svenan called with frustration. The other kids laughed at the insult, even Svenan after he thought about it.

Frostbite saw her brother look to the ground with shame and an anger seared through her.

She stopped petting the Nadder and marched up to Svenan with the mother of all glares before punching him hard in the ribs, "Don't _ever_ talk to my brother that way again. You will 'pologize."

Svenan winced and held his tender stomach. She didn't care if she did like him, no one but her could make fun of Splint!

"Say sorry now!"

The pitch of her shout caused the Zippleback to shudder it's wings.

"But he didn't catch the ball!"

She lifted her foot and brought it down on his boot, eliciting a yelp and a rather entertaining spectacle of the Chief's son hopping about with hurt toes. The other children laughed at him.

If she didn't know any better, Svenan looked like he would punch her a good one for making him look foolish, being bossed around by a girl nearly two years younger than himself. He wouldn't though, because would tattle on him to his father and Icky would back her claim. Icky never lied.

With an angry huff he turned and mumbled, "_Imsurry_."

"NO! You don't mean it! You have to be sorry for real!" she reprimanded. She knew his mumbled apologies were never sincere.

"I said sorry," he insisted and grabbed the ball from Splint who had picked it up from at his feet. He brushed past her, ignoring.

She shook her head vigorously, and in a fury grabbed splint's hand and said, "We aren't playing anymore! Come on cousins!"

"But I want to plaaaay!" Bludge whined, finally ending his fight with his sister.

"Me tooo!" Briar insisted though neither of them had been actually playing for many minutes.

All it took was an unspoken scowl over her shoulder to change their minds. The famous scowl the village children knew to heed when Frostbite shot it. A borderline tantrum, a screaming frenzy of unmatched proportions. No one wanted to set it off.

Her cousins took to trudging on behind her. She wouldn't have cared if they stayed but she was responsible for them and plus, without them Svenan couldn't finish the game.

"Come on! The teams are too small now!" he shouted.

"No! Not until you're really sorry for making fun of my brother!"

"You're ruining the game for everyone!"

"No, you are!"

She still liked Svenan, he just needed to be taught a lesson.

She ushered her herd of relatives back into her home and curled herself in her father's chair, now sad she couldn't play. It was important though that her point was made. She had forgotten even after all that, the flowery crown was still on her head. She pulled it off and looked at the pretty red flowers of her unfinished project.

"Thank you Frosty," Splint tugged at her braid.

"Go away slug," she threw it at him. She was not happy with him.

If it wasn't for him, they all could still be playing. But lessons needed taught and brothers needed defending even if they were dumb.

Her aunt looked surprised they were back so soon when she heard the commotion.

"That was a quick game. I remember one round lasting for hours," she then gave a light laugh, "Mostly because Rootstain would over-throw the ball into the woods and we'd have to spend more time searching for it than playing with it."

A knock on the door caused her aunt to stop musing and answer it, "Oh. Hello Svenan."

Frostbite jumped up but before she could make it to the threshold, Svenan emphasized he was looking for Splint.

Harkin called for him and after a few moments he waddled into view and Frost could see he had been sniffling sadly.

They heard a crash from the eating area and Harkin hastily followed the noise; it was the twins most definitely.

Svenan bent over and put a hand on Splint's shoulder, "I'm sorry I called you names."

Frostbite felt herself smile because it was sincere. He shouldn't be mean to little kids, especially her brother. And he was showing his good leadership by swallowing his stupid pride and being nice to even people who had caused his team to lose points.

"Okay." Splint rubbed a hand across his snotty nose.

"You should come back and play."

Splint nodded at the invitation and stepped forward with renewed confidence.

Frostbite slipped past him, intending on re-joining as well.

He grabbed her by one of her braided pigtails and yanked her back, effectively passing her with an assured grumble, "I hate you."

Most little girls might cry if a boy they adored told them such a thing, but Svenan had been saying it since he was four years old and Frostbite would never be convinced it was truth, not when the things she did made him a better boy.

* * *

A/N: Not dead. Promise. Just been hella busy, example: this was written Monday but I had not time to upload until today. Hope you enjoyed the look into Frostbite among other surrounding things :)


	5. Song and Sound

One of the earliest sounds Curran remembered hearing was his mother's singing. It was a melody Brynna had sung to all her children to soothe them to sleep. A song in the language of the Celts and unbeknownst to Cur at that young age, he would begin to fuss if his mother ended the song before he was fully asleep. Cur would keep that tune closest to his heart and love it until his dying day.

The next memory of sound that ever struck Cur's ears so delighted was a Skald's music pipe he heard when he was four years old. A man had briefly visited the island and told the Eddic poems in the market square with accompanying music.

Cur had heard music before at celebrations but there was always lively dancing and he couldn't ever get close enough to see how the instruments worked plus there was something special about the sound of the lone pipe notes, they were sharp and yet sounded lovely.

He and his sister had gone with their mother to market and when he heard those pipe notes he became eager and enchanted and he approached the man asking to see the instrument. He had always been a timid boy, hiding in his mother skirts to avoid talking to strangers but that wonderful sound was what prompted him to seek answers. Music made him bolder because nothing else seemed to matter in the moments he found something to listen to—no fears, nor worries, and no other dialogue.

He asked the man how those sounds were made and the Skald told him about how a music pipe really worked. About the hollow wood, it's holes and covering and blowing through it created those notes he wanted too much to hear again.

The Skald left Berk, naturally to continue on performing but Cur's desire to hear that noise again drove him to want his own pipe. Brynna was more than willing to help her son achieve his dream. He brought her wood pieces he deemed big enough and she in turn had a skilled wood-cutter hollow them out and create holes where Cur had marked for them to be. Some sounded awful, shrill, but through a year of trial and error Cur finally had his very own music pipe and could finally play a song or two he figured out on his own.

But his music and singing weren't the only sounds. He began to notice and listen for things that others often missed, the sound of water on the shore or wind in the trees, birdsongs and dragon calls, the lilts and lows of a human voice. They were all interesting and beautiful to the Jorgenson boy. He couldn't hear enough of the world it seemed.

He discovered that playing his music pipe was a sure way to attract random dragons. Gronkles, Nadders, Zipplebacks, Terrors and even his father's Nightmare, Fireworm chased after him when they heard the pipe play. He would end up being caught between dragon paws with no escape route as they hummed in content and in want of more hearing delights. His parents knew to look for the pile of dragons when he didn't come home in time for the evening meal. The High Commander would toss an eel in the vicinity and Cur would be left lying on the ground, mussed, and promising that he wouldn't do it again.

But he forgot sometimes.

Indoors was safer to play the music pipe. It kept the sound muffled from the outside. He would play songs he made for his family. There were fast tunes for his sisters and they would dance. Happy ones he meant for his mother and she would smile with encouragement still even listening when busy with sewing and cooking. His father would absently tap his boot to the pace Cur played; Cur thought of sharp and bold notes to play for his father, the High Commander to the Chief, and was inwardly delighted he could please his father enough to see him tap his foot.

The boy loved the sound, loved the music and he played so everyone else could enjoy it too.

But there was a bigger reason he did it. One most important-most of all he played because he absolutely loathed silence. There was something so empty and eerie about it that he wanted to banish it from his life forever.

Then came the winter of his sixth year; sickness took his Mother.

And from then on silence engulfed them all.

He couldn't even play his pipe to avoid it. He tried playing his mother's lullaby to feel better but Brig would shout for him to stop playing, and begin to cry. Fin didn't say a word but her stares insisted she'd rather not listen to any music. His father was exasperated and requested he do it anywhere but there. It was his favorite tune, etched in his head. He could play it as natural as breathing, and it was the first song he ever taught himself to play. He didn't understand why everyone hated it; it was beautiful, it was a part of his mother, and it let him keep her in his memory.

So he couldn't play it inside his own home, and he couldn't play it outside unless he wanted to be chased by dragons. So he had to come up with other ways or excuses to play the melody. This required him to speak to other people but he figured it was worth the discomfort of conversing with others to play the song again.

"Can I play you a song?' he asked quietly during one of Berk's more social nights. Many villagers were gathered in the Mead hall for Ale and laughs. He had asked the old man Gobber who sat at the table by the fire pit nursing his tankard.

"Eh?" he leaned over. He was hard of hearing.

"**Can I play you a song**?" Cur asked a bit louder but the shouts and laughs of the adults were still louder around them.

"What's _wrong_?"

"I said _**Song**_!"

"Aye, _I can get along_!"

"_**Song**_!"

"I didn't know a lad your age knew about ladies undies."

Cur blushed, not even knowing how the old smith thought he heard _that_. He sighed, giving up and moved to other people.

"Can I play you a song?"

He asked Ruffnut the Terrible. She was a loud lady and usually addressed people with a snap or a menacing smile. Honestly he was a bit terrified of her but her husband was kind and softer-spoken. She gave him a considering look and then turned to her husband, "What is the deal with Snotlout's kid? I thought he'd be playing the swords game by now, not music."

He gave a nervous swallow and eyed two of the older boys sparring with long sticks as if they were swords. Cur didn't have that much of an interest being smacked with a stick. He noticed adults seeming perplexed that he didn't take an interest in combat like the other boys. His father had assured him that as he grew he would be able to fight and take down the toughest of vikings if he wanted. He didn't question it, believing he could easily whomp Svenan the Younger who was two years older—and sometimes he wanted too because Svenan was Rude. But he never was brave enough to try it.

He turned his gaze back and waited for her to stop talking about him and answer the question.

"Well, um—can I?"

"You can do whatever you want kid," she replied unconcerned either way, then swiped up her mug and took a drink. He had a feeling she didn't want to hear his music.

"I want to play your music tube," their daughter Frostbite appeared most suddenly and swiped at it. She must have been sitting in her father's lap on the other side of the table where he couldn't see her.

"No," he clutched his pipe to his chest.

"I _want play it_," she said again and in a tone that was slower as if he didn't understand.

"You can't."

She sucked in a deep breath and Cur knew what would happen in a few seconds if he didn't comply. He very reluctantly handed it over. Frostbite acquired a giddy grin and blew all her might into the top of the pipe without covering any holes.

A shrill sound overcame the Mead Hall and everyone stopped socializing to look at the cause of the sound; some people even held their ears. They heard some dragon whimpers and roars on the outside the great doors, scratching at them to break in and end the terrible noise.

"Frostbite!" Ruffnut snapped and yanked the pipe from her daughter's grasp, "Enough of that!"

The little girl began to whine and protest but Ruffnut threw the pipe back at Cur and let him scurry far away. Which he did, to the other end of the room.

All he wanted to do was play music and make someone happy the way music made him happy. He hardly ever got to anymore and it had been two years since that horrid winter.

A Terrible Terror landed on his shoulder, startling him suddenly. Dragons weren't allowed in the mead-hall but Terrible Terrors could get away with sneaking in. After a closer look he knew it was Speck, the Terror that always followed his grandfather. His grandfather was merry and toasting his friends across the room and wasn't even aware Speck had snuck in.

"Hi Speck," Cur bopped the dragon's snout fondly. He liked the Terror dragons, they didn't squish him when he played music and were too small to pick him up with their mouths.

The little dragon made a gurgle noise and yawned, it thin tongue lolled out—as if it were expecting food. Cur didn't have any so he snuck up to the nearest table and broke of a piece of bread. Terrors ate almost anything. Speck was happy to munch on the morsel and decided Cur's shoulder was a nice place to stay for awhile.

He approached the next pair of people. It was the Chief and his wife.

"Can I play you a song?"

They stopped chatting and gave him a considering looks as well.

He was afraid he would get in trouble and they would tell him to put Speck outside but the Chief must have liked dragons too much to order such a thing.

"Well, what songs do you know?" He asked instead.

"I know the night melodies and the Odin-tune and the Viking sailing sea-song." he stopped and hesitated because he didn't want to play _those_, he wanted to play just one, "Also my momma's lullaby."

A different sort of look crossed The Chief's wife's face. Usually it was even and stern but now it was softer, "Play that one."

"Really?"

"Yes. Go ahead," she gave a small smile of encouragement.

"As long it isn't like little-miss-Ingerman's song," the Chief laughed.

Cur felt a bit insulted the Chief would think his songs would be anything remotely as crass-sounding as Frostbite's one note horror. But the Chief was merely joking as evident by his smile of support.

Cur returned that smile and played for them.

Once the first note was released a great lightness hit his chest, and a happiness sprouted from that lightness. The other notes only added to it and he was smiling and swaying with his eyes closed, puffing life into the lullaby he just loved so much and hardly got to hear. He even heard Speck purgowling at his hear, feeling the dragon's scales rub against his neck in content.

His song was stopped abruptly when someone grabbed his arm, "Cur! I trust you not to bother the Chief."

Speck gave a squeak and fluttered away in surprise, flying high up into the cavernous part of the ceiling.

His father didn't seem that pleased, evident by his frown.

"But Daddy—"

"It's fine Snotlout; he's a talented little guy on that pipe," The Chief spoke on his behalf.

Cur's heart lifted at such a compliment from an important person and he wished his father could feel proud too but all the High Commander did was say, "You sure he's not a bother?"

"No, now let him play for us," the Chief's wife instructed quite coldly, her face was at an even sterner expression than usual. She must have really liked his song to be angry about the interruption. Again he felt proud but it was overshadowed by his father's lack of enthusiasm.

His father nodded and his stern look did not lift as he continued forth, ushering Fin toward more food. His father had a theory that if he fed her more she would talk again.

Cur wilted just a little and didn't continue to play though it was okay to.

"Well go ahead," The Chief encouraged him but Cur knew playing it would only upset his father and his older sister if she was close enough to hear. He took a quick scan of the Mead Hall and Brig looked to be judging that stick fight between Svenan and Hailstrom.

"No, I'm done," he spoke softly and turned to leave them. At least he got to hear a part of it.

"Curran," he heard his full name; the Chief's wife had said it. No one but his mother ever called him by that name. He turned and looked at her with wide, questioning, eyes. "Thank you. Your mother's lullaby is a very beautiful tune."

She said it with appreciation and in a grown up sort of way. Talking to him like adults talked to each other, not the way they talked to children. Not the way his father talked to him.

He felt himself smile and nod, never feeling more accomplished.

His smile wasn't to last though because that night as he was put to bed his Father lingered. There was something troubling him. His father was still upset, and had been a little different after his return. Cur wished his music could make his father feel better but it seemed it only made things worse.

Snotlout paced for a while, seeming to think of what to say before he sat on the end of the bed, "Son, I know you like playing music but I ask you, man to man—never to play that song again."

It shocked him. Asking him to never play or hear that song was like blowing out all the candles in the room at night. Darkness. Silence. Cur hated the night for its silence—only sometimes would a cricket serenade or rain pelt rhythm make the night tolerable.

He knew he should obey his father's request but couldn't understand why the man hated that song. It was his mother's and they all had loved her.

"Why?"

"It's not something I expect you to understand son. Don't play it anymore."

"Well you said I could play it but not in the house—"he was desperate to keep a way, any way at all to be able to play it.

His father must have been tired and grouchy or else he wouldn't have been so fast to lose his patience, "Curran! My word is final on this. If I hear you playing that song again I will take away your pipe for good. Do you understand?"

Cur felt under his pillow to make sure his pipe was there. He was startled and hurt that his father would take it so he could never play any music again.

"Understand?"

"Yes sir," he couldn't even look at his father after that. Snotlout blew out the one candle that lit the room and that darkness was how it felt for the boy to know he couldn't play his favorite song ever again. Oh sure there would be new sounds, but they would all gradually replace the fond memories of his mother.

He pulled his covers over his head and hid his tears from the world.

Not long after darkness settled he felt a pressure on his bed.

"Why was Dad yelling at you?"

It was Brig. She had sneaked out of her room and decided to investigate.

"I can't ever play that song again. You know the one," he uncovered his face but it did little to help see in the dark.

"He is so bossy," he could hear a frown in her voice.

_You're one to talk_, Cur thought of all the times Brigid bossed him around—almost every time she let out a breath.

"I thought you hated the song too? You should be happy you can never hear it again."

"I never said I hated it, it just makes me sad. I think it makes Dad too sad to hear it."

"I could play it somewhere else, he didn't have to say I could never play it again," his voice caught on a lump because his father's tone and scowl re-played through his memory. He covered his head again. He wanted his father to like his music again.

Brig couldn't do anything about it. He didn't expect her to understand either. She was bossy and mean too. He sniffed back his tears once more.

"Remember what Mom said?"

"Momma said a lot of things," he mumbled through his quilt.

"_An rud is annamh is íontach_."

_What is seldom is wonderful._

He laid there pondering that proverb, remembering his mother say it a handful of times when they wanted more of something—food, drink, playtime—she said they would appreciate things more when not at an excess.

Nosey Brig interrupted his thoughts and joined him under his quilt. Why couldn't she just go back to her own bed? She shared one with Fin but Fin was so quiet it was like having no one there.

But then his annoyance melted and his ears perked up because Brig was humming something.

It was hushed but the silence cleared a little to reveal his mother's lullaby. Brig was humming it to him. After all, his father never said they _couldn't_ hum it. He rolled over and gave her a big hug of thanks, pressing his cheek against hers only to feel wetness.

She was crying too.

Maybe his older sister did understand, and more than he gave her credit for.

* * *

**A/N**: Wow, way to turn the lightness of the Kid's story so heavy, thanks a lot Gumdrop *rolleye* Sorry it's been so long guys., this chapter eluded me for awhile being the victim of multiple unsaved crashes.

'Speck' the Terrible Terror is Contraltissimo's brain child, and she was nice enough to let me re-use him here :)


	6. Pigs in Blankets

He knew it was a rare evening when they sat all together, he in his mother's lap staring at his sister who in turn sat across the table, his vision often marred by tankards, candles, and a variety of bric-a-brac.

His mother held out her hand and dropped two bone-carved dice into his hand. "Roll 'em'"  
He nodded and let them go across the table.

"Four," his father stated. He gathered them up and handed them back.

"You've come across a sea-serpent in the Waters of Estrangement. Now you must see if you can defeat him."

"Why isn't it a _her_?" Frostbite demanded belligerently from where she was sitting in her father's lap.

"Because it's rough!" Splint retorted and rolled the dice again.

"Girls _are _rough!" both his mother and sister proclaimed which made him re-think his statement.

"Bludgeonstick told me only boys were rough."

"Don't listen to that maggot," his sister demanded.

"Sweet cake, what did I tell you about being nice?" Their father moved a piece on the 'map'.

"Hey! I defeated that serpent! He rolled an eight!" Their mother frowned and reached out to grab their father's wrist in protest.

His sister didn't start to answer his question about being nice because their father's attention was now on their mother. Frost only stuck out her tongue at him, which she did when she thought she was right and he was wrong. She stuck her tongue out a lot.

"No dearest, that serpent was a level fifty-two and your dwarf had to roll at least a ten to defeat it. You are set back, you have to take the land path to get to the Den of Treasure."

He felt his mother's stomach heave in and let out—a frustrated breath hit the curls of his head and rustled them.

"Well, you should have told me that before—isn't that _your _job as the_ Denmaster_?"

Splint didn't really understand his parents' game. He didn't understand the math or the map that wasn't a map or even some of the words they used. He just liked rolling the dice. His mother would give him a big smack on the cheek when he rolled her turns favorably.

But now she was caught in debating his Father's rules.

Both Children knew the game was over for the night when that happened.

He felt a shove from behind as they climbed the stairs to go their beds.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Proves girls are rough," Frostbite replied without a drop of regret.

He opened the door to his darkened room. He had to share a bed with his younger cousin, Bludgeonstick. Bludge had been put to bed earlier by his aunt. His cousins couldn't keep their eyes open long after nightfall because they spent most of the day wearing each other out.

He insisted he could get himself ready for bed now that he was six years old. Usually his mother would help him get out of his day clothes but now he was thankful she was distracted so he could prove he could do it himself. He grumbled and grunted trying to pull his tunic over his head. He didn't like being in the dark for long, and having his head trapped in a case of wool didn't help—it was itchy.

"_Mppf_!" he struggled getting his large arms out.

Suddenly there was a vicious tugging not of his own. It didn't stop until his head was free of the woolen tunic, leaving him in an under cover of cloth and curls stuck toward the ceiling.

It was Bludgeonstick who had helped him, "I was sleeping. You woke me up." He didn't sound pleased which made Splint wonder why he had bothered helping. In fact he was surprised Bludge didn't just stand there and laugh.

The fact was though, no twin awake after dark was a good thing.

"Well, sorry."

It took a moment for Bludge to respond, "Okay, so 'cause I helped, I get to sleep in the bed by myself."

Then Splint knew why Bludgeon had helped him, "No, it's my bed. I get to sleep in it 'cause it's mine. You just get to stay here because I'm nice."

"No, I get to stay there 'cause otherwise the moms would get mad at you."

"I could make _you _sleep on the floor."

Bludge shrugged off that comment, "If it wasn't for me, you'd still be stucked."

"That doesn't mean you get the bed all to yourself."

Bludge was always trying to have the bed to himself, even when he was asleep he would kick Splint and steal the blankets all night which was downright rude in the winter when it was colder than Niflheim in the upper part of the lodge. They didn't have enough room for everyone to get their own bed so he was forced to sleep with Bludgeonstick and Frostbite, in turn, shared her bed with Briarprick, their other cousin—Bludge's girl-twin.

"Well if you don't let me have the bed, I'm going turn into a pig."

"You can't turn into a pig!" Splint hissed and not without surprise at such a claim. He didn't think little boys could turn into pigs at least. He'd never seen it happen.

"If you sleep in the bed tonight it will happen and then everyone will get mad at you for turning me into a pig."

He wasn't sure if his cousin made sense but he really didn't want to sleep on the floor so he just pushed Bludgeon to the side and crawled into the quilts and covers.

He heard Bludgeon give a huff and then felt the boy join him despite not getting his way. He was almost as bad as Frostbite.

Usually the calls of his mother or whines of his sister or brutal pokes of his cousins would wake Splint up in the mornings. None of those woke him up. It was a soft grunting.

He opened his eyes blearily and came face to face with a wiggling snout.

"ODIN'S EYE!" His own shot open and he immediately backed away from the animal in his bed. He tumbled over the edge pulling the covers with him.

His little heart was beating so fast, startled beyond belief. He scrambled up and peeked over the bed to see that his cousin really did turn into a pig! He was there all pinkish and wiry haired with beady black eyes.

"Bludgeon!" Splint exclaimed and grabbed him by the cloven hoof to shake it. "This isn't funny! Turn back before our moms see you!"

Bludgeonstick just gave a snort. How like him.

Splint got a little upset and pushed the piglet until he was sent squealing off the bed. Bludegonstick wasted no time in getting to four feet and running in circles around the room while making high-pitched squeals and snorts. Splint chased him, shushing him furiously and frantically wondering how to get him to change back.

He knew their mothers would not be happy if they found out.

It was no use; he needed to calm the piggy Bludgeonstick down before he could take him out of the house. Maybe the elder would know what to do to change him back, or maybe even the chief!  
He put on his clothes, shut the door behind him, and stepped as lightly as he could to see if he could find a rope or something to tie on his cousin to lead him out of the lodge.

He didn't make it far before he was put to do a chore. He whined to his mother because he didn't see Frostbite to be doing any chores until Ruffnut pointed into the other room where Frostbite and Briarprick were working together to churn milk to buttercream. She then told him to learn to pay more attention.

He was supposed to take some finished earthenware his mother had made to his father's stall in the market, which was not but a few minutes' walk away. The problem was there were more than a few pieces and he didn't want to make multiple trips back and forth.

"Why didn't Daddy take them when he went to market?"

"Because they weren't all fired by the time he left."

"I can't carry them all!"

"You can use that two-wheeled cart in the back to haul them."

It was a small cart, and Splint had forgotten about it. His father had used to put Splint and Frost in the cart when they were younger to be pulled along by Horrorcow the Gronkle. She waddled along with Fishlegs to the old training ring where their father taught the older kids dragon training facts in the afternoons. Splint and Frostbite would play out of the way or watch the older kids learn dragon-training from the area above.

That cart would be easier to transport everything so he started taking the bowls and carrying them out to the cart. His mother helped carry some as well but sternly chided '_Don't break any of them_!' when he looked to about fall, stumbling over a small rock he hadn't seen at his feet.

He mumbled his sorries and heard his tummy rumble.

Ruff heard it too and assured him he would get his morning meal after he had done his work. She and his auntie Harkin were baking bread for it before he had opened his eyes.

He gave a little sigh of anxiety because he knew he still had to figure out how to get Bludgeonstick to stop being a piggy. He also needed to figure out how to get the lad out of the lodge.

He pulled the cart along to his father's stall ; it was full of his mother's wares. He wondered if Bludgeonstick could even turn back to a human once he was a pig, or was he just a pig forever? His aunt would be so mad if she found out. He took a nervous gulp because his uncle Tuffnut would be even more furious if he learned that Splint had caused his only son to be a pig, and maybe forever!

"Oh son, what's the matter?" He heard his father ask. He was already at the stall. Had navigated his way without thinking about it. His face must have betrayed his worry.

"Nuffin' Daddy. I brought you some of Mama's clay stuff."

He could see a pile of cleansed bones next to his father's workbench. A chisel and a hammer laid on top. The smell of laquer his father mixed to coat finished pieces permeated the stall. His Dad was the only bone-carver in Berk and he worked hard.

Fishlegs unloaded the cart and set the bowls and mugs next to other clay-made wares that hadn't sold yet. His mother shaped them quite fast. He remembered one afternoon she got their Terrible Terror, Snipe, to fire up to fifteen pieces. It was tricky because Terrible Terrors could only could one shot of fire at a time before having to regain it in their belly.

Splint knew this not only because his father had told him but also because Bludgeonstick tested the creature's patience and usually ended up with light singe marks on his clothes. They knew it took an hour for a Terror to build enough fire to strike again.

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"How do you make a pig go where you want it?"

Fishlegs didn't even pause to think or become suspicious. "Well you use canes or boards to herd swine.  
If you hold wooden boards up to them about yea big." He opened his large arms to show it was maybe as long as Splint. "You can trick pigs into thinking they are walking into a wall so they turn and avoid it."

But Splint didn't have a board or a cane and sighed with disheartenment.

His eyes wandered around the stall once more and stopped on an empty burlap sack. "Can I have that sack?"

His father looked over his shoulder and saw what Splint was pointing to. "Sure son, what for?"

"I'm gonna...gonna put something in it!"

His father arched a brow with the beginnings of suspicion but Splint snatched the sack and threw it in the cart before saying '_Bye!_' and carting himself away.

He was going to sack that piglet and haul him out over his shoulder.

He arrived back home and ditched the cart in the back, then ran through the rear door on route to his room. He had all but forgot his hunger in his determination to get the piglet out of there—which was rare. However, once he passed the meal area and smelled that freshly baked bread and buttermilk he had to stop and gorge himself.

The girls looked tired and the women still seemed to be waking up. His entire family was fond of sleep.

"Mommy, he's eating all the bread!" Frostbite whined, but only half-heartedly.

"Splint, share!" was the short and effective chide of Ruffnut.

"Where's Bludegonstick? I haven't seen him all day," is aunt wondered as she spread her own piece of bread with skyr.

Splint about choked on his food.

"That's why you don't put it all in at once," was his mother's advice.

"You're a pig!" Briarprick blurted; she had such a loudmouth.

She had no idea it was her brother that was actually the pig, quite literally. But he wasn't going to tell her in front of everyone.

Splint could only frown and keep bits of breadcrumbs from falling out of his mouth, "I haffoo gogh."

"What?" the females asked, all staring at him and he found it unnerving.

He took a swallow, "I havta go!"

He grabbed his sack and rushed out of the room and back to his own. Bludegonstick was sitting in the corner of the room and making small little grunts as he breathed.

"Get in this sack," Splint demanded of him but Bludge never did as he was told and stayed put. He tried again, "Please?"

Piglet Bludge did not move a muscle.

He groaned and took out the extra slice of bread he had snuck into his tunic when the women weren't looking. He liked morning bread and didn't think he should share if Frostbite never did.

He knew his cousin hadn't had anything to eat all morning so wasn't surprised when he took interest in that piece of bread. Splint threw it into the sack and Bludgeonstick stood up and went after it, rustling his snout into the sack to get a bite.

Splint jumped on him and pulled on the sack so his cousin was all the way in. Bludgeonstick started squealing and struggling but Splint cinched the end of the sack and lifted it up on his back. Odin, his cousin was a heavy little piggy!

He tried to get out of the house as fast and quiet as he could but it was hard to escape notice with a squealing, wriggling sack.

He made it out the front door in such a panic that he didn't watch where he was going. His foot hooked onto a plank and he fell over into the dusty ground in front of the lodge. The sack had fallen, opened, and piglet Bludge shot out still squealing like it was the Ragnarök.

"Shhh!" Splint got to his feet as fast as he could and chased the pink animal, trying to subdue him. He took a leap and caught his naughty cousin in a pin.

"That's my pig!" came the call of a deep, angry voice. He gulped and looked up to see Munchglob the Morose, the butcher of Berk, approach. He was a scary man with a few scars running across his cheek, and usually spots of blood were stained in his clothes from all the animals he had slaughtered.

"No!" Splint retorted and rightly horrified because he knew the butcher would kill his cousin if he let him take him. He killed all the meat-giving animals. Pigs, sheep, chickens, cows, everything! Splint had gone with his mother to the butcher's stall and saw all sorts of dead pigs before with knife slits up their stomachs as they hung from racks.

"That's my pig, was missing since last night and I've been looking for him since."

"No!" Splint shook his head and clasped Bludegonstick close. He may have been a pain in the neck but he didn't deserve to be taken by the butcher.

"You ornery little snipe!" Munchglob was furious and made a move to pull him away from the piglet.

"Don't you think about it!" It came from behind him—a low demand. It was his mother and she just happened to be holding a sharp knife.

Munchglob looked up and blinked, noting whom was threatening him. Most knew it wasn't wise to argue, but Muchglob the Morose was not a wise man.

"That snipe stole my pig!"

"No I didn't!"

"Splint, where did you get that pig?" his mother asked him evenly.

His face fell; he couldn't hide it anymore and little speckles of tears of anxiety started forming because it was all his fault. "It's Bludgeonstick! Please don't let the butcher take him! I'll sleep on the floor if it gets him back."

"Missus Ingerman, your son is a might slow in the head. This is ridiculous! I'll be taking my pig—" Munchglob dared say and a knife went twirling past his ear, just a pinch off from grazing it. It effectively stopped his advance.

"Insult my son again and I'll show you how slow I could make _you_."

His mother's eyes were narrowed at the butcher. She looked down on her son and kneeled next to him and firmly spoke, "Splint, you have to let go of the pig."

"But Mommy—"

"It's not Bludgeonstick."

"But I turned him—"

"Into a pig? No you didn't. He played a trick on you."

He was amazed because he hadn't told her that part yet. "How d'ya know?"

"Because I played the same trick on your uncle Tuffnut when we were your age. I told him if he didn't stop wiping boogers on me I would turn into a goat and he would be in trouble."

That _did _sound familiar. Except Bludgeon had turned into a pig.

"How did you change back from it?"

She sighed, "I never _was _a goat. I borrowed a goat and put it in the room when he was asleep. So he thought it was me all day. I hid in the hay piles as I suspect your cousin is doing the same and when I find him he is going to get a licking."

Splint looked at the piglet sadly and released it. It went running. Munchglob caught it in one arm and hauled it up. "So who stole my pig?"

"My nephew did and don't worry, the pig is fine—no harm done and he's going to get a sound punishment for that offense among other things," his mother assured. She grabbed Splint's arm and pulled him up and wiped at his tears, telling him it would be alright.

"Your uncle must have told Bludgeonstick about the time I turned into a goat and he thought he could pull off the same prank," his mother explained, ushering Splint back inside. She barked out a menacing laugh, "Well not in my house. You can't get away using _my_ pranks in this house."

Not only did Bludgeonstick take the butcher's pig without permission to use in the prank, but he also skimped on all his chores that morning which didn't please either lady in the home.

The snipe was found hiding on the roof of the lodge. No one ever thought to look there but once Ruffnut demanded the Zippleback to catch him, he had no way out. The Right Head dropped him to the feet of both displeased Thorston women.

They immediately began to chide him for his misbehavior and, to Splint's pleasure, his punishment was that he had to sleep on the floor the rest of the week.

* * *

A/N - Thanks to Antic_Repartee to for combing through this late at night when my brain was mush and pointing out errors. Also for info on pigs.

So now you've seen more of Splint, more children adventures to come :)


	7. Being Brave

At age eleven, Svenan the Younger had grown tall enough to climb trees and attempt to scale the face of the diving well much to the displeasure of his mother. Astrid knew it was in a boys nature to do such rambunctious, explorative activities but the problem was that his little brother by four years, Icky always had to follow.

Icky was so nicknamed from the Stoick before him—his granddad—Stoick the Vast. Except Icky was not vast, Icky was rather thin and was showing to have inherited his father's build more so than his mother's. _Stoick__ the __Wee_, he was called in taunts and he didn't like being teased so he would always try to do what Svenan did to keep up. To prove himself a tough and brave—like Svenan.

"Stop following me! I'm gonna to tell mom," Svenan whined as Icky tailed behind him and his best friend, Hailstrom.

"No! If you tell mom on me I'll tell Frostbite where you're going and she'll want to come too."

"No! Don't _ever_ tell Frostbite where I am if she asks."

Icky knew his brother's aversion to the ten-year-old female.

"Then I'm gonna come with you instead."

"Go play with Splint!"

"Splint likes practicing wrestling and always gives me bruises," Icky complained as he rubbed one on his elbow from the last time he encountered the burly kid.

"Well, it'll toughen you up for when you're old enough for training."

"That's in like a hundred-fousand years!" the burgundy-haired child threw his hands up and exaggerated.

"What about Bludgeonstick?"

"He's mean."

"Briarprick?"

"She's meaner."

They were referring to the terrible Thorston twins that were a few months younger and hundreds of bones tougher and crueler than Icky. Briarprick was the one to have come up with the _clever_ title _'__Stoick __the __Wee.__' _

He would never forgive her. All the other kids liked it, and liked calling him it.

Sven only grumbled, "And our cousins?"

Well the Jorgenson children weren't the first kind of cousins, just _some_ kind of cousins to the Haddocks. They shared lineage on their fathers' side and that was the extent of detail the boys knew about it.

"They don't like me around."

"Neither do I right now. Go pester someone else."

Icky saw his elder brother grumble then whisper something in Hail's ear and then, within a blink, the two older boys were off in a sprint and laughing while Icky shouted at them and told them to slow down. He couldn't run as fast. It was obvious they had tried to get rid of him, and had unfortunately succeeded.

Icky frowned and stomped his eight-year-old-self back toward Berk on the dirt pathway. He wanted to see what Svenan was up to—he had taken some lumber and iron from the forge without Rune, Gobber, or their father's permission and Icky wanted to know why. He had started his apprenticeship at the forge under his father and on the days his father was called away on Chief duties, Rune took over in instructing. Icky liked Rune and helping him around the forge. Gobber did stuff too but he was an old, old man and would ramble off amazingly odd, epic, or funny tales that took Icky's concentration away from assisting Rune. Gobber called it a '_test of concentration_' and Icky had yet to pass it.

Still, he had to wonder what his brother was up to with that material. Though if he told his mother, Svenan would make Icky sleep on the floor of their room.

He did the next best thing to get back at Svenan, and he broke into a smile at seeing his eldest cousin, Brigid and Frostbite playing with a rope and jumping over it, while reciting childhood rhymes.

"Whatcha doin'?"

"Playing the jump rope," Brig answered, not losing footing. Frostbite stopped jumping though and smiled nicely. Icky didn't understand why Svenan disliked her so much; he thought she was clever and kind.

"Where's your brother?" She asked him sweetly.

"He left out into the woods towards the diving well—he was with Hailstrom."

The girls looked in that direction with thoughtfulness. "I'm tired of playing the jump rope, let's go into the woods."

Brig gave a shrug of acquiescence and they tossed their twine rope into the grass in front of the Ingerman's lodge.

"Icky!" there was a shout heard and he tried to get away before Splint could grab him into a friendly headlock. The boy didn't know his own strength.

"Gah!" Icky squealed at the grip around his mid-section and he was nearly hauled off the ground and slammed back into it.

"Splint! Off that boy!" they heard Ruffnut the Terrible shout.

Splint grunted and let up. He sounded sour, like his day had been ruined.

Icky silently thanked the world that Splint's mother had showed up when she had otherwise he might have been a flat spot in the ground. In fact, Ruffnut the Terrible was probably the only thing that saved little Icky form a horrible squishing, flat demise most days.

She continued on her path, not giving a second glace or demand to the boys.

"So you want to play a game?" Splint asked with gusto, advancing. Icky gulped because he knew 'play' was synonymous with 'being tackled' in Splint's world.

"What are you playing?" Bludgeonstick appeared so suddenly that Icky wondered if he had been hiding and spying. Bludge only gave a sneer at seeing Icky. If Splint was bad with Physical games, Bludge was worse because he tackled on purpose.

"Oh nothing. No—not any games are we playing here. Right now."

Bludge just pulled his lips back in a horrible smile, "Good, so now I can join in."

Icky began to back away from the boys. Bludgeonstick gave Splint a shove, "Get him."

Splint grinned and opened his arms to grab Icky. Icky had no where else to back into for he felt a solid wall. He had backed into the side of another lodge and closed his eyes for the inevitable pain.

It didn't come.

A roar did instead.

Icky looked upward and he saw Toothless glaring down, mostly glaring at Splint and Bludge. His wings unfolded and loomed above them, blocking out the sun. Splint's eyes became round and Bludge's smirk was lost at once.

"Toofless!" Icky cried with so much happiness at seeing his father's dragon.

Toothless jumped down, landing between Icky and the boys and that was enough to send Bludge and Sprint running and yelling. Even though dragon's were friendly, the kids were in awe of the one and only Night Fury. An angry-seeming one no less.

Icky laughed and hopped up, at once throwing his arms around Toothless's neck and hugging him in gratitude. The dragon made a light grumble and bobbed his head from side to side, pleased with himself.

Icky was happy Toothless had stopped the boys but he knew he needed to be tougher so Toothless didn't have to. He had to be brave. Everyone said his father was brave. He knew it was true because of the missing leg. He knew because he asked and that's what anyone ever told him.

"_Mommy, why does Daddy only have one foot?"_

"_Because he is very brave."_

_..._

"_Gobber, how did my daddy lose his foot?"_

"_Oh my wondrous scalawag, your father lost it being brave!"_

_..._

"_Svenan what do you know 'bout that missing foot on Daddy?"_

"_Don't you ever pay attention? He's brave!"_

…

It was decided. To be brave, Icky had to lose his foot too.

He craned his head back and looked at the roof of where Toothless had just jumped. If he could get up there and jump down maybe it would break his foot off. He scrambled up and ran around the lodge until he found a stack of crates used for carrying fish. He pulled himself up with his skinny arms but the stack was uneven and a few slid out from under him. He slid with it and didn't suffer any pain but a bump on the rear.

Toothless nipped him by the back of his tunic and carried him away from trouble. He was put back at the forge. Toothless knew that was a place the youngest Haddock should be. However it was closed at the moment. Gobber was probably taking an afternoon rest and Rune probably went to make a delivery. His father was probably out and about with a Chiefly task that didn't require the presence of Toothless. The Chief usually had the Night Fury by his side but there were times Toothless would rather play with the children.

Icky still wasn't deterred in his mission to be brave.

He patted Toothless on his snout and entered the stall. His eyes scanned the shaded place of iron and he found what he wanted.

On the wall there was a sword.

He took a breath and approached the daunting item. He only saw growed-up men handle those things. They looked heavy and sharp. But sharp was what he wanted because that meant it could cut his foot off. Then he would be brave.

He reached up and could only swipe at the blade. He twisted his little face at the problem of height and again, took a look around the room. There was a block that Rune had set his saddles on. Icky pushed them off and scooted the block against the floor until it was close enough to the wall. He went ahead and climbed on top and could reach the hilt.

Toothless had sat by curiously observing, obviously baffled by the lad's intentions.

Icky let out a gasp of breath lifting the sword off its perch, it was very heavy and his arms couldn't hold it. They both fell back and Icky yelled the whole way.

Instead of hitting the hard ground, he plopped into Toothless's head. The dragon, the child, and the sword fell in a heap.

"Oh! Fanks again Toofless!" Icky cried happily before he pushed the sword up until its hilt was on the ground, and its blade pointed to the sky. The dragon seemed winded at catching both and he opened his jaw in protest seeing the boy position his foot under the path the blade would strike if he let go of it.

"I'm brave!" Icky declared and closed his eyes, letting the blade go and gravity to take course.

"What in Odin are you doing? You crazy Sqit!" both horrified dragon and foolish child heard the voice of Svenan the younger. Icky pulled his foot back startled, and not so brave after all. The sword crashed to the ground and made a ruckus – possibly waking Gobber who kept home on the other side of the shop.

Svenan rushed around the forge and took a better look, wild eyed and concerned so suddenly after finding it so easy to leave Icky behind not an hour before.

"No really, what is this? Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"No! I'm being brave!"

"Getting yourself cut in half by a sword isn't brave!" Svenan was suddenly angry and grabbed Icky by the ear, "Come on, I'm telling Mom what you did."

"NO!" all Icky's braveness, even the little bit he did have washed away.

Icky was in tears by the time Svenan pushed him in the lodge. Toothless had followed apprehensively, possibly still curious to what was going on with the children of his rider.

"MOM!"

Astrid the Agile was sharpening her axehead and looked up sharply to see both her sons home well before they usually were.

"What's happened?"

"Icky tried to cut himself in half with a sword. I saw it! You shouldn't let him be in the forge anymore."

"NO!" Icky wailed and rubbed his ear. His brother had finally let go.

Worry did reach their mother's eyes and she set her weapon down and came forward,"Was it an accident Icky?"

"No.." he sniffed. She narrowed her eyes.

"Tell me."

"No."

All were surprised such a docile child had suddenly become so stubborn.

"Stoick..." her voice held a hint of warning.

But Icky choked on his tears and fled from them, scrambling up the stairs to his room he shared with Svenan. He failed at being brave. And now every one was mad at him. How was he ever going to be like his father now? He looked with disdain at his foot that was still there.

Awhile later there was a knock at his door.

"Icky, the evening meal is ready," he heard his mother say.

He hesitated before answering. "I wanna talk to Daddy."

A moment passed and the door opened. He heard the footstep and then weight of spring metal, signifying it was indeed his father.

"Hi Son," the Chief smiled.

Icky sniffed and then ran to him. Hiccup caught him in his arms and hauled him up in a hug. "What's the problem? Your brother told me you were playing with a big sword today and could have hurt yourself."

"I was trying to cut my foot off to be brave like you."

He felt his father's breathing hitch. Icky was set back to the floor and his father had a very serious look on his face, "Having no left foot doesn't make someone brave."

"But that's what everybody always tells me!"

"Well I'm telling you differently," his father replied and then took a seat across from him on the edge of the bed. "Bravery is what you learn, not what you become overnight. And no one should have to lose a body part to prove they are brave. Do you understand?"

Hiccup reached forward and held Icky's chin with a serious air, and the boy felt a thumb brush the scar on the side of his face, "The thought of anything bad happening to you makes all my bravery go away, Icky."

That was a surprising admission. He thought his father was brave _all_ the time.

"So can I be brave with two feet?"

Hiccup cracked a grin. "Yes, you can be brave with two feet."

Icky smiled with relief. He had to learn to be brave. "How do you be brave then?"

His father shrugged and stood while holding out his hand for Icky to take. "It's a complex ordeal. You can start off with facing your fears. For example – stay in _your __own_ bed when a lightening storm comes."

Icky was afraid of the lightening and thunder. Svenan used to be too. But Svenan was tough and brave already. Icky would do it though, if that meant he was on his way to becoming brave like the rest of his family. Like all the growed-up Vikings he knew.

Especially his father, who wasn't brave all the time but still seemed to be on the outside.

He took Hiccup's hand and smiled.

* * *

**A/N:** Another month, another chapter. BUT, good news - looks like the next few chapters will be coming sooner than later. Sorry for slow updates. RL Work has been crazy.

Thanks to Antic for catching grammar fails and Yamilink on Deviantart for the creation of Rune.


	8. Truly and Honestly

Briarprick Thorston wasn't mean, she was just _honest_. Unlike her liar of a brother, who was just mean and a liar.

"You're ugly," She told her brother who merely replied she had to be ugly too since they were twins. She didn't believe that because he lied anyway. She believed however, that his big forehead, long jutted jaw and scraggly brown hair—was ugly; he looked like a troll. Or what she imagined one to be from old Man Gobber's tales.

"You're a pipsqueak," she told Stoick the Wee and he called her mean. It was a fact. She was almost his age and she could at least climb a tree without falling the first three times plus she _never _ran home crying to her mother if she did.

"You're fat," she mentioned to Brigid when she caught the girl sneaking extra portions at a Mead hall event. Brig was big-boned for her age and nearly whomped Briar a good one for that comment but Briarprick believed no one should be offended at truth and no one should get _mad_ about it. In all actuality Briarprick was just too skinny in comparison, an inherited trait from her father's line. Thorsten women were lithe and no amount of eating would ever gain them curves of a voluptuous nature.

"You're dumb," she told her cousin, Splint, when he couldn't figure out how wheels worked no matter how many times her Uncle Fishlegs explained it to him. Splint didn't understand what she meant, he wasn't known to be a deep thinker, and it came as no surprise.

"You're spoiled," she told Frostbite after seeing the older girl whine and whine because Briar had been given a Nadder-tooth necklace and Frostbite didn't have anything. It got so bad that Uncle Fishlegs finally presented her with a necklace of her very own that he made from sheep vertebrae bones with a wishbone pendant. Frost had to have everything her way. After Briar's truth, Frostbite then turned her whining on her younger cousin telling her to 'take it back.'

"You're not fun," she told Fin. Finola was probably considered even less pleasant to be around than Briar. Finola was said to keep a permanent frown ever since she could crawl and often refused to talk, even more so when the Lady Jorgenson passed. Fin's silence made her unpleasant, never fun nor amusing like most of the younger children in the village and of course little Fin did not dignify Briar with a reply to being 'not fun', which only proved it fact.

"You're rude," she told Svenan the younger when she asked him one day what he was doing and he told her to '_go away'_ because she ruined his concentration. He looked to be constructing something and ignored her thereafter.

Her Mother had always told her to tell the truth, that only _good_ people told the truth even though her father was claimed to consider small lies to be acceptable by both her Mother and Aunt.

Her father was very blunt as well, and so she combined her thoughts, and her honesty into one unit. Her love for her own voice also added into it, Briarprick was often told to 'shut up' by the kids around her because she never stopped talking nor telling them the truth about themselves. Her father had once proudly proclaimed her a 'loudmouth.'

She sang songs at the top of her lungs when she did chores to pass time, which caused Frostbite to whine and demand her to be quiet. Briar didn't like it when Frostbite got her way so only sang louder. That's when Frostbite would try to out-sing her. Briarprick's voice was lower, rough, and left verbal scratches across ears. Frostbite had a dainty, charming voice of girlish innocence that manipulated everyone around them. When Frost started singing, Briarprick gave up because Frostbite had a prettier voice and that was one truth Briar wouldn't admit to out-loud.

"You're Weird," was one of the first things she had told Curran Jorgenson after really meeting him. She had seen him before out playing with the boys or participating in games of Bashy Ball. But after his mother died, Cur often went off by himself to play and avoided playing what his sisters wanted him to. One day she decided to follow him since everyone else had told her off—even Frostbite who got along with her the best, amazingly. There was only so much _honesty_ Frostbite could handle from Briar in a given day.

She found Cur in a field on the sunset side of the island. Curran was three years older and had a long stick in his hands and he was thrashing it around into the air towards nothing in particular. She had asked him what in the world he was doing. He said he was playing his own game where he imagined he was composing the nature and told her that the wind whistled and that the grass swayed in a tune no one ever bothered to listen to.

So she told him what he was in all honesty. _Weird._

She was five years old and had been practicing honesty since she had learned the concept. She still yet had to comprehend the difference between fact and opinion because to her, they were one and the same.

He shrugged, not missing a beat to his silent symphony, "Thank you."

And it was the first time anyone had acted _positively_ toward her honesty. So if Cur could find the time to thank her for telling the truth, then it was probably true the rest of them should too!

Cur had a Terrible Terror on his shoulder and she recognized it was the one the Elder Spitelout often toted around. She wondered why it was with Cur this day and not his Grandfather.

She was used to Terrible Terrors flying around her Uncle's lodge. They ate off the slop pile and her Aunt bribed them with fish bits to fire her clay. _Snipe_ was a Terrible Terror that was fond of Splint but they hardly ever saw him because her ugly brother was always bullying the poor thing. That, or Frostbite would latch onto Snipe and her 'love' was too much for the creature.

She reached up and petted the Terror. It gave her a wide-eyed once-over before deciding to accept her hand. It even hopped over to her arm. It's talons scraped her skin in order to maintain balance, she winced but it let up once the Terror settled next to her neck.

Since no one else wanted her around she sat awhile in the field curiously trying to understand what Cur was talking about but the silence felt odd because she was always surrounded by loud noises of the household. Her own voice, her brother's taunting, her cousins' whining or bickering, her Aunt's shouts of annoyance, and her Uncle's constant murmuring.

It made her think of the night where recently she sat awake when she was supposed to be asleep. Frostbite had accidentally elbowed her awake and she ended up sitting on the floor in a ball. There was no noise for once because the night seemed to have a magical blanket that covered all the sound. She grabbed her Nadder-tooth necklace that her mother had given her, for comfort and looked at it—maybe realizing a truth about herself—the reason to why she was always making noise.

Even though so many people surrounded her she still felt so overlooked.

"It's too quiet," she said, breaking the spell.

"What'cha talkin' about? All I hear are noises," Cur spun around and his long stick swished at the grass.

"I don't hear anything," she said honestly and then paused to think, "and it's kind of nice."

He looked a bit horrified at her statement and retorted, "If you close your eyes it helps, you can go imagining based on the sounds."

She did so, she closed her eyes and suddenly was in a void of darkness but she did hear something.

She heard the sea loll upwards to the shore, and crash against the cliffs, she heard birds twittering in the trees, a breeze through the grass, and a few echoing dragon calls across the island.

_She was now on a quest to find her very own dragon._She imagined upon hearing another call.

Big dragons didn't let children ride on them and she often wished she had a Zippleback like her Auntie and father's, though she wouldn't share it with her ugly, lying, brother—he could find his _own_dragon.

"So you hear it?"

"I hear something," she admitted and opened her eyes. "I heard the sea and stuff."

He only smiled, and not even in a '_I told you so'_ look, before turning to do what he was doing previously—but then he halted, and timidly asked, "Do you like music?"

"I like to sing."

Something in his demeanor, in his crystalline eyes changed, "Sing a song."

"What? Right now?" She had a distaste for being told what to do.

He grabbed a smaller stick at his belt at drew it out, revealing it to be a music pipe. He lifted it to his lips and gave her an earnest look, urging her to sing. So she did.

The Terror gave a tiny screech and removed itself from her shoulder.

Cur told her to stop singing immediately, "Never mind."

"What'd I do wrong?" she frowned and wiped the unruly pieces of hair from her eyes that had blown there.

"It doesn't match."

"What?"

"Your voice."

She kept her frown. Was that just the nice way of saying her voice was bad?

He played anyway, a tune she didn't recognize. It was certainly a pretty sound and it made her frown lift.

"What song is that?"

"I made it up," he paused for only a moment to answer and was right back to playing. She was impressed, the other boys just fought and teased or were totally useless, well Stoick the Wee was the only one who fit that latter category. After a few moments of the noise, she spotted a flash of color from the corner of her eye.

A Nadderhead dragon was approaching, gliding low on the sky. But it wasn't just _a_ Nadder. It was a lot—more than she'd ever seen together. Purple, Red, Blue, and Green scaled firebeasts circled the sky above them as Cur played his song. It looked like they were going to land soon, and right on top of them all! Wild Nadders!

"Cur!" Briarprick shouted and gave him a harsh push to release him of his own fugue. The pipe flew from his mouth and dropped to the ground.

He stared at it and then to her. Instead of shouting or getting angry he only asked, "Why?"

She shouldn't have felt so bad for knocking his pipe away, she had saved them from being squashed but the way he looked at her was so sad. She pointed up and he finally noticed all the Nadderheads that had close watch of the boy who played music. They began to fly away. The music must have enchanted them somehow.

"Oh," was all Cur said, craning his head back and watching them—like it was a regular occurrence. She hadn't seen so many Nadders at once before. They came through the village but not in that much volume. It was beautiful though, the myriad of bright colors above them on every layer of the sky. One day Briar would be there up there with them, flying.

Cur picked up his music pipe, dusted it off, and tucked it back into his belt, "I guess that was a bad idea."

She gave him an obvious stare to which he ignored. She hated to be ignored.

"You are so _weird_." It was truth; he was unlike any other boy she had ever met.

He only grinned that time, losing any trace of shyness from before, and returned to composing the seeming uncontrollable sounds of nature. But on the contrary, the sounds seemed to obey him for he held a face of satisfaction.

That day in the field was an important day, though she didn't know it then. She didn't hear any songs from the wind or grass like he had—just the regular noises. But she believed, and that was important.

Looking back when older, she could pinpoint that time to be where she and Curran had started to become friends. He had found a person who could begin to know the complexity of his world of sounds and she had found someone who tolerated her blatant honesty. They didn't seem to be suited friends on the outside but Briarprick could honestly say the world was full of weirder things than an introvert and loudmouth finding some ground toward friendship.

That was the _truth._


	9. Mean Mischief

The vision of the path was clear; no wind blew at the packed dust and dirt that was laid for villagers to walk on. A tiny clump of weeds were growing only soon to die in Berk's harsh, cold, weather.

An angry shout interrupted the calm, followed by a child's bellow. A taunt of the most offensive caliber was thrown between two figures that rushed past the picturesque, quiet morning.

In a moment the dust and dirt was all but thrown up beneath the running stomps and footsteps. The weeds had died earlier than expected, but to be in the path of the Terrible Thorston Twins, it wasn't surprising the weed was uprooted by a malevolent kick.

Bludegonstick's sister screamed once he caught a hold of her braid. It was nice to feel his power in her scream. He yanked. She always deserved it. She had shoved him into the door on their way out that morning.

Bludgeonstick hated Briar's loudmouth, the only instance he did enjoy was when she was giving off screams he was the cause of.

Like now.

It was validation for his labors of proving he was better. She never made _him_ scream like _that_. In all actuality there were a few times, but he had chosen to forget them to keep his mental record untarnished.

He gave her hair another vicious tug that nearly pulled her back into a fall but she caught herself and managed to jerk a kick to his knee and he let go, distracted by the pain.

"Daddy!" she began to whine as she fled inside to their father's lodge and he straightened himself. He had forgotten where they were going in the first place. Their mother had sent them off with something—he didn't know because Briar had it—to give to their grandmother.

Their father was in the smoking parlor with a rack of fresh kills. Bludgeonstick wandered over and examined the carcasses with intrigue. Briarprick was being embraced by their father who looked somewhat startled to see them.

"Hey kid," his father addressed him.

"What?"

"You pull your sister's hair?"

"No."

Bludge had to stop himself from smirking as Tuffnut administered a scowl of disapproval at his daughter for lying, mostly lying to him—other people he wouldn't mind so much.

"He did! Daddy! He did!"

"No I didn't," Bludge refuted, and then changed the subject to further drive the favor from Briar, "These are some neat kills, Dad."

There were hares, mink, and a fox.

"Hush up, Girly," Tuff demanded to Briar's instant whines of not lying.

"Gammie, he did!" her loud mouth was still open and accusing, but now pointed at the elder woman in the room.

His grandmother had been sitting there, sewing, but she turned a cool eye on him and he became ever so unsettled and looked away. Only three people in the whole village could ever make him fearful and that was his grandmother, his mother, Harkin and then his fierce Aunt Ruffnut with whom they lived. He was rightly terrified of his aunt if she ever got angry at him. She once chased him with a knife, threatening to cut his hair so none could keep his head warm in the winter. He had knocked over her clay bottles to deserve that outburst.

"So your mother sent you over by yourselves?" Tuffnut asked, and a hint of disappointment was evident in his words. Bludge could hear it and it bothered him that they were all still apart when his Dad obviously missed them. He barely remembered, but he knew they had all lived together before.

"Yes, she wanted me to give this," Briar had gotten over her brother's offense for the time being and held out a small wrapped bundle to the master of the home.

He opened it and stared for a second before grinning. He lifted out some smoke-dried beef and chewed on it. "My favorite, tell your mom thanks for me."

"It was actually for Gammie…"

But their father pretended to ignore that fact.

"Why can't you just tell her _yourself_?" Bludge couldn't take it anymore and asked, being careful to avoid his grandmother's suspicious eye. He had asked his mom before why they lived apart but she always told him to ask his Dad and he didn't dare to until now.

"Bludgeonstick!" his Grandmother chided anyway, in it a tone warning him not to tread on the topic and not to use such a voice when questioning his elders.

"But everyone_ else_ lives with their mother and their father except if they _died_, like the Jorgensons. You're both alive so we should be living together."

"It makes sense, it does," Briar threw in her opinion-fact but she wasn't supporting him, just the idea. He knew she had snuck out to sleep by herself when their uncle's place seemed too crowded. He would tell on her to their mother if he could prove it but she was back before dawn. He had to wonder how she even snuck out in the first place. He didn't even know how seldom or often it happened.

Tuffnut's expression darkened, "Ask your mother why we don't live together."

"I did and she said to ask you!"

His father looked taken aback, and then a helpless glance was thrown at their grandmother to which she shrugged.

"You asked her?"

"Yes."

"Well..." he said, but left it at that and became involved in thinking of an answer, "It's too complicated to understand. You'll understand when you are older."

Bludgeonstick was not satisfied that answer.

"Okay, well…I'm older now from when you said it - _now_ I can understand," he was obstinate.

"Kid, you'll get it when you're older by a few years."

"Are we ever going to live with you again? Or will Mom be mean and not let us?" That was the only thing that made sense to the boy because he could see his Dad still liked his mom.

Harkin however was very unreadable. It seemed she didn't love their father at all. She never talked about him without prompt. He didn't understand it.

Tuffnut stood and asserted himself, "Do not disrespect your mother around me kid. What she does for you is because she loves you."

Bludgeonstick frowned, doubtful.

"If she loved us, she'd let us live with _you_."

That remark earned him an abrupt ear-twist.

He rubbed it and an idea popped into his head, "She said she wanted to see you."

His father's frown took on a new light, "What?"

"Nuh-" Briar was about to call him out but he threw a very, daunting, nasty look to which startled her and caused her to stop what she was saying.

"Mom wants to see you, meet her by the tavern today's evening."

"Did she say why?"

He shook his head with false, unknowing innocence, "She has something for you—uh—too big for us to carry."

He swore he saw his father look hopeful.

"Come on Briar, we have to get back," he demanded. She gave a snarled face showing she was not pleased with him but it was nothing new or less offensive.

"Goodbye Daddy. Farewell Gammie!" she waved as she followed him.

He stalked out of his father's lodge quicker than usual.

"Momma didn't say she wanted to see Daddy today's afternoon. You're a big liar."

"Just shut up forever," he replied. He felt a push and he turned around and then hit her so hard she did fall back that time. Tears stung her eyes but she didn't try to push him again.

When they arrived back at their Uncle's, Frostbite took Briar's hand to go play immediately, whining that she had waited _forever_ to play when it had only been a quarter hour. Briarprick seemed inconvenienced and he only smiled at his sister's distaste as Frost led them away to play something boring.

"Did you deliver that beef to your grandmother?" his mother asked when he had wandered into the adjoining room. She had checked her traps that morning too. He found is so odd his parents had so much in common but lived apart. His mother was a huntress, and her kills amounted to three hares. They would probably be used for stew.

His Aunt was occupying the room, he noticed. She was splitting pea pods from the garden.

"Briar did. Dad wants to see you today's evening."

"No, I am busy." Harkin hung the rabbits in preparation to skin them. If they lived with his dad, they could all skin kills together.

"But—" Bludgeonstick struggled, hating to see his plan ruined by his mother's stubbornness. He saw his Aunt gain an intrigued expression but it soon turned to suspicion.

"He said he has something to give you!"

Harkin looked up sharply, "Why didn't he send it with you two?"

"It's too big for us!" he was outwardly lying, desperate to trick his parents to meet face to face, something they rarely did. "Well I will have your uncle pick it up then after market closes."

"NO! It HAS to be you!" Bludgeon all but shouted which got the ladies to give him a very perplexed look.

He needed them to like each other again, because he was downright tired of sharing a bed with his pudgy cousin who took up most of the bed and made little piglet snores. He wanted his own bed. Even if they had to take Briarprick too, it would be worth it just to have some elbow room.

"Why?" Harkin asked rather irately.

"It's for you."

Her suspicion didn't wane, "It's for me and it's heavy?"

"Yes and you should meet him at the tavern."

"Did he buy a drum of ale for you or what?" his Aunt asked upon hearing his false claims.

"I don't know."

He turned his back on them, knowing his vague response would get his mother to become curious and go. She had to.

He was about to leave but when he opened the door a man stood there and looked as if he were about to knock. It was the village wound expert; he had a name but Bludge always forgot it. No one was currently suffering from a gaping lesion, so Bludge failed to see why the man was the there at all.

Until he asked, "Is your mother home?"

"Not if you're asking," Bludgeonstick retorted immediately with a glare, knowing the man to have taken interest in his mother which he found gross. The only man his mother should be with was his father.

"Bludgeonstick Thorston!" he heard the shrill call of Harkin, who had heard his rudeness to their guest, and he decided to leave as fast as he could. The quicker he got his parents to reconcile the better off he would be, and that man was bad news. He was a tall man with long, stringy brown hair and always serious as opposed to Tuffnut - Brazen, muscled, and who liked a good amusement, who had the encouraging laugh of a rogue. He admired his Dad. He did _not_ like the wound expert at all.

He saw the Ingerman's Terrible Terror, Snipe, perched on a wooden post and took the opportunity to sneak up on the dragon. He swiped it into one arm and Snipe let out a squeak of terror and began to Struggle. Between Bludgeonstick's sick amusement and Frostbite's unconditional cuddling it was questionable on why Snipe stayed around the Ingerman lodge. All the other Terrors left within a day after helping his aunt Ruffnut fire her clay.

Bludgeon switched his hold to the wings and Snipe fell with one of them spread open, still in the grip of the terrible boy.

"Come on Sniper," Bludge cackled and moved forward so Snipe was forced to be drug along the ground.

He heard the familiar sound of hissing, of a terror beginning to shoot fire and dodged a fast stream, Snipe had let loose before it hit him. He'd gotten singed before by Snipe, and only punished the little dragon more for its resistance.

"Nice try lizard," he swung is arm around and let go. The Terror hit against a rock and gave a small squeak, as if the air in its belly left it.

"You know, in days of old people were too afraid to even touch a Terror."

He stopped his bullying and looked at the speaker. It was Splint. The older cousin picked up Snipe and patted him on the head before the green fire beast skittered away to the underbrush, leaving both boys wondering if that was the last time they would see the dragon for good.

"Where'd you hear that? They are the least scary things on the island!"

"My dad told me."

His Uncle was a know-it-all. His cousins ate every word up their dad said. Bludgeon didn't believe it for a second. Snipe was as easy to handle as the clay his aunt worked with.

"They could carry a full grown man away if they were in a pack."

Bludge couldn't imagine that. Terrors carrying away someone as big as his uncle just didn't seem possible. He said so with his face—a brow raise and a wrinkled nose.

"Did you do all the chores you were supposed to?" Splint asked instead of commenting further.

Bludge was supposed to clean out the goat pen but he hadn't done it yet nor did he intend to. Splint was done with his chores, so Splint could afford to do an extra one.

"The goat pen needs cleaned."

"That's your chore."

"Now it's yours. Your mom told me you had to do it since I had to take something to Grandmother's."

"Oh," Splint's eyes drifted to the ground with disheartenment and he turned around to go do his extra chore. Bludge had to hold back a snicker because his cousin was so gullible. Splint didn't even think to question to why Ruffnut didn't tell him directly. It seemed Splint should have learned by now when Bludge was pranking him but it was no inconvenience to Bludge that his cousin was stupid.

He couldn't go back to the lodge yet, not until Splint was done with the pens. Otherwise Harkin would ask him if he did it and if she looked out to see Splint doing it, Bludge would get into trouble.

He picked up a stick and dragged it behind him which carved a path in the dirt behind him. He was almost eight years old, and he wondered if they'd all get to live together again. Not that Briar counted, she was like their pet. She made loud sounds and was only good for amusement.

He waited for a good hour, entertaining himself by throwing rocks at the cats, mocking the calls of the Nadders, and chasing the free grazing pigs near the butcher's home. He had borrowed a piglet once to play a prank on splint. He ducked out of sight when the Butcher of Berk stepped out to feed the pigs the food waste.

After that, he climbed the small fence and sat on the post looking out toward the sloppy pig grounds, knowing each and everyone would be slaughtered by the end of the season. Pigs were all fat and waddl-y – but he had tasted their meat and he liked them more dead than alive.

He grew tired of waiting and ambled back to the lodge. His mother had gotten through skinning a hare and a half.

He approached cautiously, peeking his head over the table opposite his mother.

"So are you going to go see Dad?"

"No, Bludgeonstick, I'm not."

He held in an unpleasant noise at her decision, but didn't stop his question, "Why _not_?"

He had pestered her before, he had asked her why they didn't live together, or if they ever were to again and she always gave a quick, sharp answer that he never felt satisfied with. He still didn't understand a lot of things but knew it wasn't normal.

This time something changed, she gave him a look, "Do you _really_ want to know?"

It made him slightly nervous but he wanted the answer so he nodded.

"Your father hit me."

He waited for more.

But nothing else was said.

He was confused. He didn't understand what the big deal of that was. He hit Briarprick so many times and she didn't leave them. Of course he couldn't admit that to his mother because she would chide him for hitting his sister and it was apparent now she was not tolerant of hitting at all.

This was maybe why it seemed Bludgeonstick could get away with so much his young life without any spankings.

Still, it wasn't fair!

Just because his mother couldn't take a hit, meant they had to live in a crowded lodge away from their father. He was surprised too, because he thought his mother was tough. Now he didn't know what to think.

He had to ask his Dad about it. Maybe his Dad could explain it now that Bludge knew what had happened. After all, his Dad hit his mom so Bludgeonstick knew his dad could understand about him hitting Briarprick. But that also meant he had to come up with a way to work around his lie about Harkin wanting to meet Tuffnut that evening. Bludge was confident he could.

After the evening meal that day, he set out before any adult could stop him and waited for his father near the tavern.

It was getting darker earlier, and there was a growing chill in the air. No one questioned why he was loitering outside an establishment he was obviously too young for.

Finally he saw his dad. His dad came out of the tavern and glanced around before seeing his son.

"What are you doing here?"

Bludge took a little gulp, mindful of how his father's gaze went from pleased to a downward bitterness. It seemed he already knew Harkin wasn't going to be there by his son's presence.

"I hadda question."

"And you couldn't wait to see me tomorrow?" Tuffnut glanced around once more before his gaze bore into Bludge, "Where's your mother?"

"She's not coming."

Tuff raised a brow, "You said she wanted to see me."

"She doesn't now. She changed her mind because you hit her."

The look on his father's face was of complete and absolute shock, a good few seconds where he was rendered speechless at his son's statement. Slowly, but surely it pulled back into a frown, "Who told you that?"

"Mom."

The frown turned to disbelief.

"I can't believe she did that," his father uttered after a moment, but more to himself than anything.

Bludgeonstick waited for his father to get done reacting so he could ask his question, but even after it seemed he should, Tuffnut still was struck.

"I hadda question, 'member?"

"What?" his father asked a little harshly.

"I hit Briarprick a lot…"

"Don't hit your sister, don't ever hit anyone" Tuffnut ordered with more force than Bludgeonstick was used too. He must have hit a nerve. But he wasn't done with his question, he was determined to understand.

"…but that didn't make her leave, so why can mom leave if she is hit? It's not fair. I don't know why because you hit her, made us have to leave you."

It took a minute for his words to sink in for Tuffnut. Once they did, his father grew very concerned in tone and expression.

"We have to get you home. It's late."

The sun had set behind the sea and the only lingering light was that of twilight. Bludgeonstick should have known his father wouldn't answer. That time he didn't even promise that Bludge would '_understand when he was older'_.

Tuff picked Bludgeonstick up so he was riding his father's back all the way back to the Ingerman Lodge.

Tuffnut knocked on the entry door, alerting the inside of his presence and Ruffnut answered.

"What's up, bro?" She asked, throwing her elbow on the frame and leaning into it.

"Brought home a vagabond," Tuff let Bludge slide off and run inside.

"What a scamp, he dodged out on cleaning his dinner bowl. We wondered where he was hiding," Ruff agreed and when she turned her back, Bludgeonstick stuck his tongue out at her.

"Careful, if she sees you she'll cut it off," His uncle said in a whisper. He was sitting in his chair. Bludge didn't know if he was joking or not but didn't doubt it.

Frost and Briar were playing with their rag dolls and Splint was practicing his runes all in the main room. He didn't see his mother.

Bludge lingered around the front to see what his Dad would say.

"I _have _to talk to Harkin. It's important."

Tuffnut had not asked to talk to Harkin in a number of months—believing if he let her be, her anger would subside better—but never once had he stressed the importance of the action.

_Good._ Bludgeonstick smiled at himself because now maybe his father would talk some sense into his mother. He would later brag and hold it over his sister that it was _his_ doing that brought their parents back together, and in a serious way – entirely unknown to him – it was.


	10. Storytimes

It wasn't so much that young Finola hated to talk as she loved to listen.

She wasn't enamored of the sounds of the world like her elder brother. She was content on observing the world around her instead of being a part of it. People were the oddest of beings, odder than any dragons she had ever seen, and just as interesting to watch.

She took in all the words they said around her, learned them, and stored them for whenever she might need them. She had gotten through life so far without being required to speak. What was a word compared to the effect of an angry look or an embrace of appreciation?

She didn't sit pondering this specifically at six years old, but knew in this to be in an abstract, child-like feeling. That was the general reasoning for lack of verbal communication, and reflecting on it when she was older, would use that as a exact description.

She still liked words though she barely used them for herself.

The words she liked best were those told in stories.

On some nights, the children would gather to tell and listen to stories while their parents socialized and drank ale or other types of beverages in the Mead Hall.

The eldest kids always got to tell stories first, because they were pushy. However,they usually told the better stories of the bunch since they used more words. Fin preferred this hierarchy of storytelling. Her sister and the Chief's eldest son were bickering on who should tell the next story.

"I want to tell a story this time!" Svenan declared suddenly and hopped right on up to the planks that surrounded the big fire that simmered in the center of the Mead Hall. He liked being the center of attention, but he also told stories with energy—Fin liked that too.

"Oh _fine_, as long as it isn't the one you told _last_ time," Brig reluctantly agreed and slumped to a sit next to Fin on the floor. Only the story teller got to sit on the planks.

"Tell Daddy's story!" Icky suggested with overwhelming enthusiasm.

"Yeah! The Battle of the Red Death!" the boys were enthusiastic.

"It's called the _Green_ Death!" Briarprick argued.

This initialed a verbal fight between her and her twin brother before Cur ended up moving himself between them.

"That's the one we heard last time anyway!" Brig objected, getting back to the subject.

"No you heard the story of how the Chief _recovered_ from the fight!"

"_Same_ difference."

They glared at each other.

"Yeah, I don't want to hear about one again!" Frostbite weighed in her opinion.

"No one cares what _you_ think!" Svenan snapped immediately, to which she just gave an affronted frown.

"Okay, raise your hand if you want to hear the story!" he exercised his diplomacy—which was important because someday he would be the next chief.

Bludge, Splint, and Icky's hands shot up, but Frostbite tugged on the auburn-haired boy's sleeve with the shake of her blonde braids; it was apprehensively lowered.

"Okay, who doesn't?"

Frostbite and Brig raised their hands. Icky's sleeve was tugged once more and he barely raised it, looking at floor in a guilty manner. Svenan didn't notice.

"And what about the rest of you?"

Cur shrugged, Briarprick, who sat next to him, added, "We did basically hear it last time, tell something new."

"What about you?"

Fin was being addressed; she did like stories. She didn't mind that she had heard the tale of the Green or Red Death before, so she nodded that it was okay.

Frostbite was determined to get her way. "Well, Icky doesn't want to hear it."

"He raised his hand he wanted to!" Svenan argued. He was thoroughly outraged by her claim and obviously hadn't paid the best attention.

"But then he put it down. He doesn't want to hear it."

"Icky, is that true?"

"Yeah?" His voice wavered just a bit and he refused to look his brother in the eye which told Svenan everything.

Svenan gave a mean glare to Frostbite, probably for being a manipulative urchin.

"Then I will tell a story!" Brig stood and plopped next to him, beckoned for Fin to join her. "I know it's one you never heard before."

"Oh really?" Svenan crossed his arms with doubt.

"Yes, really!"

Fin climbed onto the planks, into her sister's lap, and settled in, wondering what story Brig knew that she did not.

"It's a story about a beautiful and brave Lord's daughter and a Viking whom she hated...at first."  
That teaser elicited a couple of '_oohs_' of intrigue from the girls.

"Whatever, this better have some action," the Chief's eldest conceded and reluctantly vacated his spot on the planks.

"There's a battle!" Brigid snapped with a sly smile.

"Okay!" Svenan was quick to relent and take his place among the sitting children.

"Cool!"

"Blood!"

The boys were pumped up already.

Fin knew this story, it was her favorite—and Cur's and Brig's too. It was the Rock Girl and the Viking Warrior tale. Their father had told them it.

Well, not _all_ of it.

He had to leave without finishing it—Worst. Cliffhanger. Ever.

Now that he was back, he must have forgotten because he had stopped telling them. Fin always wondered what became of Rock Girl, and if she did marry the chieftain of the tribe? Would Brig make up her own ending? Would Cur like it? Most of all, would Fin like it too?

As Brig talked, the children were quiet because no one else knew it and they were anxious to know the outcome. The only sounds were that of squaggoring dragons and mumbled adult voices. But that was ignored and all focus was on Brig.

The boys were excited during the battle narrative Brig told. They liked the crashing walls and rock throwing.

Fin liked the character named _Rock Girl_ because she threw rocks at the Viking when they met. It was a funny way to meet someone. The maiden had been taken to the Viking homeland and was supposed to wed the clan chief, but that was all they knew.

So Brig made up the rest, since it was a story after all.

"On the day of the wedding, Rock Girl had disappeared..." Brig told and waited appropriately for them to gasp and wonder. Some of the boys weren't as enthusiastic anymore, though, since the story had turned to pure fluff.

"What happened?" Frostbite demanded, since she was not tired of the plot at all.

"They searched for her. They didn't know that the Viking Warrior loved her, or else they would have been more suspicious when he had planned a fishing trip on the day of the wedding."

"Fishing is fun though!" Icky interjected. Everyone ignored his pointless remark.

Finola could see her father not far off at a table with the Master Ingerman and Tuffnut the Brazen with a mug of ale in hand. Instead of laughing with them, his attention was in Brig and her story. Finola had to wonder if her father would ever tell the rest of it, though Brig seemed to handle making up her own ending. Did her father like this ending? Was it the right ending?

"When the villagers entered the Warrior's home, it was empty, like someone had thieved from it!"

"Awesome!" Bludgeonstick punched the air. He had seemed bored with the remainder of the story up until Brig mentioned thieves. "**And then** the Viking warrior came back and slaughtered those robbers as punishment!"

"NO! It's MY STORY!" Brig about threw Finola off her lap as a projectile at the obnoxious Thorston but Fin grabbed Brig's dress and anchored herself while her sister re-composed herself. "AND it wasn't robbed. The Viking Warrior had taken his lass and sailed away, to never return. He would be with her no matter what, for the Gods themselves could not tear them apart."

That must have been the conclusion. It was rushed because Brig had seen the crowd starting to turn on her. Frostbite clapped with vigor. Bludge was downcast because there no _real_ robbers and Icky still maintained that fishing was fun. They could hear Svenan saying with incredulousness, "_That it_? No other battles?"

"Way to betray his tribe," Buzzkill, a kid no one really liked added in his opinion.

Brig only gave them a glare for their unsatisfactory feedback.

Their father still stared at them rather solemnly before excusing himself from the table and wandering away so even Fin couldn't see him anymore.

"I know a story, it's a true one!" Icky shot his hand up.

"What story?" Svenan demanded to know.

"The Pale Nadder!"

Everyone seemed to groan or snicker at the boy.

"Icky, you know that is not a _real_ story," Svenan reasoned.

"Yes it is! Gobber told me!" he argued, which fueled the children's laughter. Most children knew to be wary of Gobber's tales.

"Gobber says the moon is made of cheese," Briar howled and pointed at him.

"He also says Trolls stole his socks," Brig agreed.

But Finola had never heard of a Pale Nadder true or not. She wanted to know. She leaned forward insistently and uttered the word, "Tell."

All of them became quiet, some never recalling her say any word in their lives. Her own Siblings could count the words she had said on only two hands while they had known her.

Icky looked unsure now, but Finola's sharp eyes insisted to know the story.

"Well, Nadders are usually bright colors and travel in groups, there is a white-scaled Nadder that roams the islands by itself. It is a vicious dragon that will melt any human face it sees. It is cursed to be alone and pale. It used to be a regular Nadderhead but one day a hunting pack of Vikings found its families nest and boiled the eggs. They ATE THEM! This was the old days before our Dad made dragons friends. So the Angry Nadder hunted down the Vikings in their village and killed them all!"

Icky paused for breath and spread his arms while making angry sounds that were supposed to be a Nadder killing all the people. His noises garnered attention from the Terrible Terrors that were lazing about in the ceiling. They sailed downward and emulated the noises.

Fin got a surprise feeling of frenzy and began kicking her dangling legs against the side planks.

"Sit still," Brigid bossed. Fin obeyed, yet that feeling stayed.

Bludgeonstick looked very into this story already and Fin spied Frostbite trying to make a grab for one of the Terrors, probably to cuddle one to death. They smartly dodged her. Fin sighed a breath of relief for it, feeling for it.

"But it killed the wife of the chief who was gonna have a baby and the elder was not happy so she used her magics and they sent an avalanche upon the Nadder from the mountains above and it was stuck so long in the snow that it's scales got so cold they blended in white. So now the Nadder had no family and hates all humans. It's the Pale Nadder."

Everyone sort of stared uncomfortably at Icky. His narration skills needed work, to say the least, but he kept grinning ear to ear like he had told the most epic tale in eight generations. With everyone staring blankly or with sneers, though, it quickly deteriorated his pride.

Finola's face betrayed no emotion, but she felt bad for the Nadder in the story. She didn't feel that bad for Icky though, he wasn't a very good story teller, and that was why they hardly ever let him get his say in story time.

Frostbite finally smiled and gave a few claps to support the kid and that made all the difference. Icky's face flew into a wide smile, self-assured that he did it good that time, even though no one else really thought so.  
"Why are you clapping? That was terrible! Except for the killing!" Bludge asked, but Finola saw Frostbite kick him and then she joined the girls on the plank.

"I have a story!" Frostbite cried, seeming with sudden inpiration.

"No one wants to hear_ your_ stories!" Svenan objected.

Finola slipped off of her sister's lap knowing Frost would end up getting her way and telling a love story. Already the boys were groaning and Svenan was doing his best not to pull Frostbite down. She suspected the reason Svenan didn't pull the blonde down was because Brig would hand him his rear. Finola was actually tired of those kinds of stories.

Her sister liked romantic stories well enough and stayed put on the planks even though she wasn't the one telling the story anymore. It was just warmer right there.

The boys were already fed up with Frostbite's prologue and began to get up and wander about. There were a few dragons snug in the Mead Hall at the moment. Usually they weren't allowed in the Mead Hall but for special occasions because they all couldn't fit. But a lucky few who had not flown away at winter were either snoozing or preening their wings in the warm smoky room.

Finola passed the Thorston Zippleback and its left head nipped at her skirt playfully. She gave a squeak of surprise, frowning inwardly, projecting a warning thought of discontent around her instead of shouting outright and hurried along until she bumped into her father.

He had refilled his mug, and he looked down on her. "I thought you liked stories?"

She bit her lip and reached up, signaling she wanted held and the High Commander easily scooped her up into one arm while maintaining his mug in the other.

She wanted to ask him what really was supposed to happen to Rock girl and the warrior Viking , but it was too difficult to ask in words. She imagined her question, saw it, and wished her father could see it too.

He did notice something was odd with her. They made it back to the bench and he set her down, "What's wrong, little flower?"

She opened her mouth to articulate and at the same time her father's eyes widened just as much with encouragement—seeing she was about to speak.

"Rock Girl," she half-whispered, her voice like a seed on the wind and very light. But it was clear enough to her father to make him pale.

He didn't respond for a few moments. Instead, he blinked and asked, "What did you say?"

But Fin didn't want to repeat herself. Every word she didn't say gave it more of an impact for later. And obviously, a simple utterance of a made-up character's name rendered her father in a look between melancholy and horror.

She just imagined the last scene, the true scene of the original story when the Rock Girl and the Viking Warrior had shared a dance, then it faded to black because she knew no more.

She didn't answer her father to spare him any further looks of such sadness, but turned around and bumped smack into the Zippleback. It had followed her. She reached out to steady herself but it was counter-productive because she fell against the moist green and yellow scales anyway.

Suddenly, an image so bright and clear replaced the fading black. She saw her image of Rock Girl being pushed towards a Monstrous Nightmare by the Viking. She was frenzied and fearful, but the Viking Warrior took her hand and laid it on the dragon's snout. Fin never knew Rock Girl was afraid of dragons, at least her father had never said that in the story. The image was gone as soon as it appeared and Fin blinked a few times, looking around and wondering where that image came from—that visual answer appearing so suddenly that answered what else happened in the story her father had yet to tell.

She looked up, craning her head back to see two heads at the peak of the two skinny necks and both heads were grinning at her, as close as a dragon-grin could be.

It made her wonder.

* * *

A/N: Thanks to Ikaro of the Desert for proofing this! She's my new Beta! also Oneil for giving some insight to little boys, it helped make their reactions more humorous and believable. 


	11. Dragon Spit

"Up Right!"

"Up Left!"

Two long, green necks accidentally twined together because both the attached heads made chomps for the sudden air-born fish.

Frostbite gave her younger cousin a miffed look. "Wait until _I_ feed one before feeding the other one!'

Briarprick was obstinate. "If you feed one head at a time, the other gets jealous."

The Zippleback was one of the hardest dragons to keep around the home. It usually hunted for itself, but twice a week it was offered the catch of the day. The Zippleback would never pass up the chance. It was fond of Frostbite's mother and Briarprick's father, one head each more so than the other. However, both heads of the Zippleback adored both little girls.

"That's why we do it at the same time," Briar concluded. She was half-sensible; she was seven years old. Frostbite, four years older at age eleven, considered herself much wiser than her loudmouth cousin.

"Fine, but you throw it that way. I will throw one this way." She nodded to her left then right. They dug into the bucket of the fresh catch that Tuffnut had picked up from the docks and heaved them in opposite directions. The two heads separated but Briar's aim was too far and they ended up straining their long necks.

"No, no, they're gonna rip in half!" Frostbite shrieked at seeing the beast struggle—its heads straining to each go in opposite directions.

Briarprick remedied her mistake by dashing over to the grounded fish, scurrying back and holding it out to the left head.

"Sorry Left! Sorry!" she apologized with sincerity. The dragon took the fish and swallowed it in one slick gulp.

"Are you two done feeding that thing?" they heard Ruffnut shout in question from the Ingerman lodge threshold. She was carrying a basket of clothes, likely going to the stream to wash it, and required one or both of the girls to help her.

"One more round Mother!" Frost answered.

"Okay maybe we could just stand on our tippy-toes and hold it for them? Left didn't eat my hands or anything!" Briarprick voiced a new idea.

Frostbite gave her an apprehensive look. The heads had bitten her brother Splint, as well as Briar's twin brother, Bludegonstick, who seemed to get it at least twice as much. Nothing fatal or serious, just tiny nips that stung and left holes in their clothes. The heads became less reluctant to teach Bludge a lesson the older he got. The Zippleback was not fond of him, mostly because he was mean and he pulled on their back zipples—the soft series of blunt 'spikes' that trailed their necks and back. Her father had named them, so Frostbite liked to call them that too.

"Okay," she agreed and grabbed another fish, holding it up to the right head. Right sniffed and then let out a smog of green gas from its nostrils before whipping its tongue out and curling it around the fish, reeling it back into its scissor-toothed mouth.

Frostbite yelped, not expecting that.

Briar was laughing. She kept laughing as she grabbed the last fish and held it to the left head again. Left snackled its lighter in content and did the same as Right but Briar did not flinch like Frostbite had.

She turned to her cousin right after and teased, "You were scared!"

"I didn't want it to bite me!" she whined.

"It only bites the boys."

Speaking of _boys,_ Frostbite saw Svenan the Younger trying as hard as possible to slip past her lodge without being seen. She thought he was funny, and she did enjoy a grand chase, knowing she would always catch her target in the end.

"Svenan!" she called and waved. Instead of responding he seemed to freeze like a deer that had caught a human scent and hoped it hadn't been seen.

"Auntie we're done!" Frost heard Briar call to her mother. Because Briar was only half-sensible, she didn't realize that she had just volunteered herself to help wash their laundry. Frostbite was tired of chores and excited for a chase.

She advanced toward Svenan but he jerked forward in a desperate sprint. She gave a laugh and followed, wondering what exactly he was up to.

"Svenan!" she called from behind him, reminding him she was at his heels.

"Leave me alone! I have work to do!"

He didn't look like he had work. He wasn't heading toward the docks where he was apprenticed to the shipbuilder.

"I can help!" she offered. Hailstrom Skørne was usually with the boy but even he was absent this day.

"No! Go away!" he called from behind his shoulder.

She stopped, a bit frustrated with his rudeness, and let out a breath to show it. She then squeaked in surprise because, suddenly, she found herself lifted. A dragon head pushed her up and she found herself sliding down a long neck. The Zippleback wanted to play with her.

"We should follow him," she said, pointing after Svenan. The Zippleback wasn't interested and began going in the opposite direction with her.

She was going to lose his trail if they went any further away. He had already gotten far. She figured the dragon liked hunting, apparently just not for fascinating boys. She wondered if she could train it to find Svenan whenever he hid from her…

She gave a shout and jumped off Right's neck, stumbling and catching herself before taking off into a run to see where Svenan was actually going. Last she saw, he was heading toward the wilderness. Boys often liked going in there for their own reasons. To Frostbite, those reasons were still mysteries.

Looking around, the girl realized that couldn't see him anymore. He could have ducked behind a stall or wall, but most likely he had made it to the forest. He was an extremely fast runner; she had to give him credit for that. He could even outrun older boys!

She stopped to catch her breath at the forge, only to swing her head in and greet Svenan's little brother, Stoick.

"Hiya Icky!"

The boy was in his second year of apprenticeship. He was fanning the bellows and abruptly stopped to smile at seeing her.

"Frostbite! Hello! Hi Frost. Bite. Hiya!"

He had a funny little smile, mostly because of the small gap between his two front teeth. She gave a laugh at seeing it. Rune, whom was in charge when neither Gobber nor the chief were present, gave a courteous nod to her but lightly chided the boy for stopping his task at hand.

"I hafta keep the fire up right now, wanna play after?"

"Sure, just come over to my place," she nodded and flipped a braid over her shoulder. "Do you know what your brother is up to?"

"Not sure. I saw him go past, into the forest," Icky confirmed what she knew.

All the more intrigue to Frostbite. She continued forth until the forest edge loomed before her, she didn't usually go by herself in there.

She hesitated for one moment, wondering if it was sensible to follow Svenan into the woods, but her overwhelming desire to know what he was doing pushed her forward.

"Svenan!" she called after a few steps in, she looked behind her and could see the thatched rooftops between the pine needles and leaves of the forest. After a few more steps the sight of the village was no more.

The smells of the forge fires, however, clung to her senses. Then she heard rustling. It could have been an animal or a dragon or a boy.

"SVENAN!" she called louder and a few birds in the treetops above whistled before flying away.

Frostbite wasn't aware of the green eyes following her every move from behind a patch of elderberry bushes, waiting for her to pass.

She made a little whistle that seemed to imitate the birds.

_Like that would get me to come out!_ Svenan thought furiously from his hidden position.

But her whistle had attracted something else entirely. A muscled body of scales suddenly thumped in front of her path and Frostbite was absolutely shocked, as was the boy hiding in the bushes.

It was a wild Nadder—a rogue. It had to have been for it to be alone because Svenan remembered they traveled in groups. As for Frostbite, she _knew _it was a rogue because her Daddy had told her all about the dragon manual instead of bedtime stories when she was younger—she knew most facts about the Nadderhead species. They had magnificent bright scales of color. Therefore, what shocked Frostbite wasn't that it was alone, but that it was white!

Was it the _Pale Nadder_ Icky had told them all about in his short story-telling career?

The Nadder sniffed at them and opened its mouth, letting out a sharp squawk of a roar. It would surely kill them if Icky was right!

Svenen felt a surge of bravery—or perhaps foolishness—and stood abruptly. "Go back to the village, Frostbite."

He noticed her jump in surprise at revealing his location, but soon was still as a statue.

"It will kill you Svenan—it's the Pale Nadder!" Frostbite answered slowly, not moving a muscle where she stood.

"I'm going to make it leave. Now move out of the way. Dragons don't hurt children, my father says so," he commanded and pulled a slingshot from his belt.

"But Svenan, you're almost thirteen—your child-smell is wearing off! It won't tell the difference."

"That is ridiculous! What '_child-smell_?' My dad never said anything about—whoa!" Svenan dodged a quick biting attempt from the Nadder, stumbling backwards until he tripped over a log. His slingshot fell out of hand.

Frostbite had reasoned that, since the Zippleback was more apt to take bites at her cousin and brother as they grew, the child-like nature was fading from them – otherwise it would tolerate the jabs and pokes of a child. Svenan was older than all of them and he would surely die. She couldn't let that happen!

"Back, back!" Frostbite made a shooing motion with a worried heart and concealed it with a frown at the wild firebeast.

She got it enough away from Svenan to sing it to a calm. Her Father also told her that dragons love music, and it soothed them. She hummed a merry song used at the festival celebrations and it seemed to calm the Nadder. Its head spikes relaxed and a round, bright eye studied her.

"Go Svenan, you should leave 'cause it's still aware of you even during music."

Svenan wasn't about to take orders from Frostbite of all people; he jumped up and grabbed his slingshot. With a quick aim he slung a rock at the beast, meaning to shoo it away, but it missed and flew far past.

The Nadder's spikes lifted in alarm and it swung around looking for the small object that had been thrown.

Svenan heard Frostbite scream and looked over his shoulder to see her collapsed to the forest floor. The Nadder gargled in ire and flew away, but not without shooting a loathing glance at the boy.

With the Nadder gone, Svenan jumped over to Frostbite to see what her problem was.

She laid there with a grimace and tears that flowed freely.

"What? What happened?" he demanded impatiently.

"My leg," she whined.

He gazed down and saw that something must have cut her. She was bleeding.

"That's not so bad," he dismissed it, which caused Frostbite to wail, further deteriorating his patience. "Look if you hadn't chased me into the woods this wouldn't have happened!"

She was sobbing now at a high volume, and no matter how he tried to convince himself he should just leave her there to cry out all her tears, Svenan knew it was wrong.

He bent down, shoved his arms under her and lifted her up. She held him around his neck, her tears ebbing into sniffles.

"Are you gonna carry me back?" There was a hint of hope in her voice, as if this all were some elaborate plot that led to him carrying her. Though it was impossible, she couldn't predict a rogue Nadder would set upon them.

"Yeah but not 'cause I _want_ to, but because it's the right thing to do. If I was some jerk I would just leave you here."

"Oh."

"So you can't tell Icky I'm a jerk anymore."

She often did and it annoyed him that the wretched girl controlled his little brother's opinion of him.

She managed a smile. "He doesn't think you are a jerk, and I don't either."

"I don't care what _you_ think about me!" he snapped.

"You're a jerk!"

It would have almost been funny to him that she was such a hypocrite, but he was more angry than anything. Her arms slid away and her weight suddenly fell against him. He looked down to see she had closed her eyes.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

She didn't answer.

"Stop playing around we're almost back and you can walk yourself!"

He thought _for sure _that would get her to wake up and start whining. He threatened to drop her but couldn't because it struck him that she might not be faking. What was _wrong_ with her?

He quickened his pace and emerged on the edge of the village. He went straight to her lodge and kicked at the door.

Ruffnut the Terrible answered the door with mucky, wet clay all over her hands and up to her elbows and she didn't look pleased. Her frown increased tenfold when she saw the state of her daughter. Frostbite's leg was swelling and she appeared to be unconscious.

"What happened?"

"We were in the woods and something cut her." Svenan wilted under her intense expression.

Ruffnut's frown lifted immediately and she threw a curse. The boy had a feeling it was serious if the Missus Ingerman looked worried. He considered her one of the toughest vikings in the village.

"Take her upstairs. I have to fetch her father," Ruffnut instructed and left hastily.

It wasn't long until Splint wandered in asking questions, which just hassled Svenan. He wanted to leave but couldn't help but to feel a tiny concern for the annoying girl's predicament. Soon the Master Bone-Carver nearly busted into the room with wide eyes, encouraging Frostbite to wake.

"Sweet Cake? Wake up darling," he said a few times, rubbing her hand with concern until he realized that wasn't working.

Fishlegs then barraged Svenan with specific questions about what had happened. Svenan tried his best to answer but now the memory was kind of hazy...he hadn't paid enough attention. It was all so fast. When he mentioned they had come across a rogue Nadderhead, Fishlegs cursed. It startled Svenan because the man was always so polite and kind. Fishlegs then had Slugwing fetched to inspect the wound. Slugwing concluded a Nadder Spike had grazed her leg, which made sense given its swollen state paired with the facts of Svenan's account.

He just wanted Frost to wake up so he could go home.

He stood in the room, trying not to be seen, wondering if the adults would chide him for leaving since he hadn't been specifically asked to. Did they still need him for something? He watched as more people came in to see the state of Frostbite. Ireth, the healer, was putting salve on the wound when they heard, "She's poisoned. She's going to die."

Svenan tensed at hearing his own father's solemn voice. Not just the tone but the actual words. The Chief must have been called for because he was the expert on Dragons.

Missus Ingerman squished her face tightly before throwing her arms around her husband. Tears were clearly visible in the bone-carver's eyes. "But Hiccup, there...there has to be something..."

"There isn't any cure to the poison of a Nadder spike. 300 years and nothing has ever been found to stop it from spreading and even the best warriors of Berk all succumbed to it in a day or two..." he saw his father look at the little girl with remorse, "but she's just a young one."

Svenan felt an emotional weight hit him. Sure he didn't like Frostbite but...he didn't want her to die! Well, he'd always said he hoped she would—Toothless should have eaten her or something. But not like this! Not for _real_. He took a heavy swallow and figured it best if he left. He could hear his father's condolences as he exited the room. No one even noticed his departure.

Upon leaving the home, he was surprised to find his little brother at the door, smiling ear to ear while Toothless sniffed him. Svenan knew Toothless would be there because he was with the Chief and was supposed to stay outside of the Ingerman lodge lest he break all of Ruffnut's wares. However he didn't understand Icky's reason to be there.

"Icky? What are you doing here?"

"Frostbite and I was gonna play after I was done at the forge."

"Frostbite is sick," Svenan replied, his heart dropping for poor Icky who didn't even know what had happened.

His brother's smile faded into confusion. "She didn't act sick earlier."

"Well she is now! She isn't ever going to get better!" Svenan shouted forcefully, angry. Toothless's plates bent backward in alarm.

"Why not?" Icky was dismayed.

"I don't want to talk about it," Svenan glowered and started off. He was angry—angry that Frostbite had chased him into the woods. This was all her fault! But if it was all her fault, then why did he feel so...guilty? He heard Toothless start to follow him with concern.

He felt a yank on his hand and looked down to see Icky frowning. "You tell me right now what happened! She is my friend! I know you know because she was following you like she always does."

Svenan told him what had happened, even the fact that it was the Pale Nadder that nobody believed existed except Gobber. He expected Icky to be sad at the news that his friend was most likely going to die. All they could do now was pray for Frostbite. But Icky's expression turned into that of determination.

"We need Nadder spit!"

"What?" Svenan was taken aback.

"Nadder spit makes it better!"

"What? How do you know? How?"

"I saw Storm get into a fight with Cringe one time ago. Cringe released her tail spikes and they hit Storm in the chest! Then instead of dying from poison she just licked her wound and she is still alive!"

Storm was the Nadder that was fond of their mother. Cringe was the same but to Harkin the Huntress.

Svenan gave pause. "Why doesn't anyone else know about this?"

"Because no one ever sees Nadders fight. They do though, over the boy dragons in the autumn."

Toothless seemed to nod in exasperated agreement at Icky's statement, though Toothless didn't understand a lot of human words.

Svenan was skeptical but then again, he never paid the best attention so it could be true. He wondered if Icky was just making it up to feel like Frostbite had a chance.

Icky climbed on Toothless, prompting him to leap forward, past Svenan and back toward home. Svenan broke into a run and got there in time to see the boy run into the lodge. A moment later he came back out holding a fish that looked like was in the middle of being smoked. He heard their mother shouting and paled. Icky had snatched their dinner and Odin only knew what he was doing with it. Toothless bounded after Icky at the sight of the fish.

Around the backside of the lodge he was teasing Storm with it. The Nadder eyed the fish hungrily and Toothless was about nose his way in which made Icky squeal in ire. Storm had her mouth open in anticipation of being fed the salmon. Svenan spied a pool of drool collecting on her tongue. Icky was trying to get her saliva, though Svenan couldn't see how he would carry it – he didn't have a bowl of any sort. He lifted his lip in a disgusted manner at the sight.

Their mother appeared, finding her young thief and threatened to revoke a week of any freetime to Icky if he didn't give her that fish back.

Icky, usually the most obedient child in the village, seemed to ignore her and screamed, "Svenan hold out your hands!"

He did it but didn't know what was going to happen. Icky led Storm closer and at that moment the reservoir of saliva overflowed and dripped onto Svenan's hands.

"Eww!" Svenan gagged and made to wipe his hands on the front of his tunic but Icky grabbed his wrist to stop him.

He quickly handed the fish back to Astrid, which caused both Toothless and Storm to cry in dissatisfaction at being teased with such a delicious morsel. Astrid was calling after them but the boys didn't have time to explain themselves.

"Let's go!" Icky demanded and they took off in a run but Icky was so much slower than Svenan and lagged behind. Svenan then realized Icky meant for him to put the saliva on Frostbite's wound and that thought propelled him to make the same disgusted face. However, if it meant Frostbite would live, then it meant she would follow and annoy him once again. He took a deep sigh and decided he _did_ want her to live. He just never wanted to be bothered by her again.

He quickened pace and was soon in front of the Ingerman lodge once more He shoved open the door with his shoulder and ran to where he had left the troublesome girl. The saliva was beginning to dry and before he could explain himself he pushed through the adults and smeared all the Nadder spit on his hands across the cut on her swollen leg in the manner Ireth had applied the salve.

The blood from the wound had congealed and her skin around the cut was a dark purple.

Svenan could tell Fishlegs was about to yell at him for touching his dying daughter with dragon-spit, and it did seem disrespectful if he stopped to think about it. But Icky hadn't been far off in describing how the Nadderhead saliva healed its poisons. It was a natural antidote and it made sense that the source of the poison had a way to counteract it. It was amazing how fast the salvia took to clear out the poison. Within a few moments the purple color was faded to a blue, the strained veins around her leg were less swollen, and she took in a deep breath—though still unconscious.

Svenan felt himself take a deep breath as well and then noticed everyone in the room was staring at him: Frostbite's parents, the wound expert, the healer, the elder who had arrived to call on the spirits, and even his own father who was there to support his friends in a time of tragedy.

"What did you do?" Fishlegs asked.

"Nadder Spit, it uh...it cures its poison."

"How did we never know that?" Fishlegs turned to the Chief in amazed wonder.

Hiccup was at a loss of words; he just looked at his son proudly with the most impressed expression. Svenan had never gotten a look like that before from his father, not with such intensity. Hiccup was proud that his son had used his knowledge of dragons and had applied it in a most useful way. Though no one knew it was actually Icky's discovery and Svenan, wrapped up in being congratulated and thanked, forgot to credit his little brother for the find.

Credit didn't matter to Icky though, what mattered was that his friend Frostbite was going to live.

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry all. Issues with finding a Beta, and break ups, and losing jobs and whatnot. Thanks to AnticRepartee it got a good dose of editing. Seriously, Antic is a rockstar.

Rune and Ireth characters belong to Yamilink DeviantArt


	12. The Mysterious Wound

Not many things could startle Brig.

She considered herself brave and sensible enough not to scream at spiders or when those stupid boys popped out from their hiding spots with intentions of making girls yelp and jump backward.

However, one morning when she was thirteen years old, something was odd upon waking. When she finally found the cause of that oddness, it sent her to hysterical screaming.

Fin, who slept next to her, bolted awake with wide eyes but Brig couldn't explain anything. Soon enough her father was in the room with the same wild, confused and concerned expression.

"What's wrong?" he demanded. Looking at the event retrospect, she could suppose she hadn't looked harmed at all. She only became angry at his instant lack of sympathy because something was so very, very wrong with her.

She lifted her hand and it was smeared with blood.

"I'm bleeding! Why am I bleeding? DAD, WHY AM I BLEEDING?"

His brow rose in a moment of surprise.

"_Where_?"

"Down my legs!"

"Are you in pain?"

That question she considered, because nothing really hurt. It didn't make sense. Usually when you bled you were hurt! It was just a fact of life!

"No!" she began to panic wondering if she had some awful, silent sickness. Something more virulent than the Winter sickness that one couldn't even feel until suddenly dropping dead.

Something must have dawned on her father then because his worried glance fell to somewhat of a lost look.

"Oh."

That was all he said, like he knew what her disease was all of a sudden. Neither fear nor panic laced in that '_oh.'_ So simple, and infuriating.

What the Hel was going on?

"WHAT? WHAT IS IT?"

"Clean yourself up. I will find someone to explain it to you."

"What? Why can't you explain?"

Her usually composed if not boastful father was stumbling over his words, "It's...I just can't Brig. I really do not know how to explain this."

"But you know what it is, obviously!"

"Just clean yourself up. Don't argue." His attitude was back to his normal seriousness and uncontested demands.

She threw her covers back in a frustrated, fearful bellow and was even more horrified at the spots of blood in the fur bedding. Though, the ultimate horror struck her when she finally found the origin of the blood. If she had a weaker constitution she probably would have fainted.

How in the seven worlds could she not feel any pain if she was bleeding so much? Was she going to die?

Fin crawled out of the bed abruptly; seeming alarmed she had been sleeping with such things.

"Shut up!" Brig said defensively though Fin never spoke a word, she only gave a judging look. It wasn't Brig's fault. She didn't even know what was happening to her!

She found and ripped extra material for a dress she was sewing for Fin and used that to wrap her wound. She managed to clean herself alright and put on a long dress.

"Well?!" she asked when she saw her Dad again, who was dressed for public as well.

"Come on, let's go."

"Where?"

"Don't argue, just follow."

"But I'm _bleeding_!"

He grabbed her wrist and tugged her along, seeming impatient. She only grew furious at her vague father. They arrived in front of the Elder's and he beat the door as though he was in an extreme hurry, which made her worry about how long she had to live.

There was no answer. He did it again. Still no response.

He swore, then reasoned, "She must be out."

_She probably died_, Brig thought unkindly then took it back in case the old mystic really wasn't dead and had read her thoughts. But really, the old woman had lived for so long and Brig found it more a surprise everyday she lived.

They next went to the Thorston Lodge and Tuffnut the Brazen was the one to answer their call.

"What's up?"

"Is Harkin in?"

"Yeah but she's busy. What do you need her for?"

Suddenly, Briarprick ran out of the home screaming, followed by Bludgeonstick who was holding a dagger and threatening to kill her, who was then followed by Harkin, shouting curses at them, which prompted Tuffnut to add to the curses and go after them all.

Her father just let out an agitated noise of frustration from the back of his throat and continued on. He wouldn't even wait for someone. Meanwhile Brig still knew she was bleeding and couldn't do anything about it.

They walked through the town circle where dragons usually were found when not with their Viking companions. A Gronkle and a Blue Zippleback caught Brig's scent and clamored around her suddenly. She didn't know what to think but Snotlout had to pause his steps to shoo the curious dragons away from his daughter.

Eventually both father and daughter were perched in front of the Ingerman lodge. Brig had no idea to why her father kept going from home to home or what he was looking for or how it would help her stop the bleeding.

Her father rapped on the door and Ruffnut the Terrible was the one to answer.

"Whaddya want 'Lout?"

"Brig has a _thing_..."

The Missus Ingerman raised a brow, "Yeah because I know exactly what her _thing_ is."

"You know, a _lady thing_."

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Tell her it will be okay, tell her what it is."

Brig swore the lady's eyes lit up in amusement but she found nothing amusing about her predicament.

"Oh no way, I'm not going to let you skimp on your parental duty."

"But _you_ have a daughter!"

"And she is not burdened yet. So until then I'm not saying anything about it. _You_ tell her. She's your daughter, high commander."

With that Ruffnut closed the door on them and her father grumbled out another curse. Maybe two.

"Come on," he barked and carried onward. He seemed to hesitate before knocking on the next door. It was their cousin's home.

Brig would be so mortified if her father blurted that she had a 'thing' to them.

But it was Astrid the Agile that appeared in the threshold.

"'Lout?" she asked in a tone not hinting of pleasantry. Brig never remembered the chief's wife to take kindly to her father.

"Please," she heard him say, and he was starting to sound desperate, "you are a woman and I need a woman to explain _this_," he gestured to all of his daughter. "Brynna was taken too early and I never thought this time would come without her."

Astrid seemed to understand. She gave an appraising and yet sympathetic look to Brig. Brig was growing tired of all the vagueness about her condition. So far she got the hint it was only something a female was afflicted with some bizarre sickness consisting of bleedings and a slight abdominal cramp.

"Fine. I will. Leave her with me for the day," Astrid nodded.

"Done," he agreed and gave Brig a kiss to her cheek like she was some child before departing.

What a great father; faster to dump her off with someone else when he couldn't handle the situation.

"Come inside Brig," Astrid instructed.

"What is going on? Really?"

"You want to know why you bleed?"

"Yes, why won't Dad tell me?"

"He can't explain it, no man really can," she gave a slight superior smirk but Brig found nothing funny about it either.

"Will it stop?"

"Yes, it should in about five days."

"WHAT? Almost a week?"

"Could be shorter, or longer. It differs."

"And what is _it_?"

Suddenly they were interrupted by her skinny red-headed cousin.

"Mom! Svenan took my-"

"I don't want to hear it right now Icky, begone!"

Brig's cousin halted and gave them a look mixed of hurt and suspicion. "Hi Brig, bye Brig," he said but obeyed and left them with a sigh. Astrid took a breath and smiled kindly at Brig before continuing her answer.

"You started your bleed cycle, meaning you are a woman now and its purpose is to indicate whether or not you are with child. If it happens that means you are without, and if does not happen then you are with, and you don't have to worry about that until you are married, but it will come each month until you can no longer bear children."

Brig had to take it in, this was ridiculous, this would have to go on for _YEARS_?

"How do I deal with it?"

"Lots of hot tea helps, keep clean wraps."

She had to sit, it was such a startling piece of news; she'd never even suspected. No doubt she would have known if her mother were still alive, like her father had indicated. He had put it off until after it had happened, causing her to panic and fear for her life. She stood after a moment, realizing she felt uncomfortable sitting for too long.

"So I can't die?"

"No, not from this,Astrid looked like she had wanted to say something more but instead averted her eyes before landing them back on Brig, How do you feel right now?"

"I feel okay, though a bit angry at my Dad."

"That's common." It was a remark in a snide tone that made Brig wonder if Astrid was referring to anger in general or anger at Snotlout. However, the lady's words were quickly followed by, "You will be moodier before and during the cycle. And you are lucky to not be so affected by other symptoms; some girls have horrible stomach aches with it and can barely stand."

_Fair enough._

But still, this 'bleeding cycle' was like an unwelcome pest. A monthly unwelcome pest. She'd rather have to deal with the spiders.

But the more she thought about it, she _had_ to have it or else that meant...well something she was hardly ready for.

It was not a good day for Brig.

* * *

A/N Hi. It's been awhile, and I'm sorry.


End file.
